This Mind-Bending Exhibition Will Teleport You from Abu Dhabi to Seoul

If your summer travel plans happen to include a cultural adventure through Abu Dhabi (and seriously, they should), you might want to get ready for a little teleportation magic. 

Right on Saadiyat Island—a buzzing cultural hub with pristine beaches, luxury resorts, and some of the region’s most iconic museums—a cross-country portal has just opened, and if you venture through, you’ll find yourself face to face with the wild, shimmering world of Korean contemporary art.

Inside Manarat Al Saadiyat, the island’s coolest art space, the mind-bending exhibition ‘Layered Medium: We Are in Open Circuits’ is a full-on conceptual voyage through Korea’s artistic evolution, told by the very creators who pushed the boundaries of what art can be.

Curated by Kyung-hwan Yeo of Seoul Museum of Art and Maya El Khalil of the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation—the two institutions co-organizing the show—’Layered Medium’ pulses with poetic robots, glitched-out memories, kinetic sculptures, speculative cities, and video pieces that feel like time machines.

At the center of this buzzing creative circuit is Nam June Paik—the legendary godfather of video art whose works feel like a playful mashup of sci-fi, philosophy, and good old-fashioned mischief. 

Alongside him, you’ll find some of Korea’s most iconic and imaginative voices, like: Yunchul Kim, whose intricate kinetic machines are so alive they might just start humming along as you watch, and Park Hyun-Ki, a pioneer who danced along the blurry line between technology and metaphysics. 

And because this is Abu Dhabi—a city that never does things halfway—the exhibition is more than just what’s on the walls. A rich programme of talks, performances, and screenings runs throughout the season, inviting deeper dialogue on everything from technology and identity to memory, migration, and modernity. There’s even a bilingual publication, ‘Layered Dialogues’, that maps the shared ideas, rhythms, and visions between Korea and Abu Dhabi. 

On view until June 30th, 2025 (and yes, it’s totally free!) as part of Abu Dhabi Festival, this is your chance to jump off the usual tourist trail and dive headfirst into Korea’s wildest creative playground—all without leaving Abu Dhabi.