Palestinian solidarity poster show opens in Seoul through May 4

A traveling exhibition of 16 Palestinian solidarity posters spanning six decades of visual history opened at Faces gallery in Seoul's Yeonnam-dong neighborhood, with organizers seeking to link a global Palestine solidarity movement to Korea's own protest art tradition, the Korea Times reported.

The Seoul showing marks the exhibition's first stop in South Korea after touring more than 20 venues across 15 Japanese cities and appearances in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia, reflecting an expanding international network of Palestinian visual solidarity.

"Visit Palestine: Seoul Edition," curated by the Korean Cultural Alliance for Palestine, is on view at Faces gallery through May 4, according to the Korea Times. The group — comprising musicians, visual artists, translators, cultural theorists and filmmakers — was formed in April 2024 following street demonstrations against Israel's military campaign in Gaza.

The project originated in June 2021, when Andhika Faisal, an Indonesian-born cafe owner based in Japan, discovered Palestinian solidarity posters at a Tokyo secondhand shop and launched the Visit Palestine Poster Project. The touring show expanded from Japan to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia before arriving in South Korea for the first time, the Korea Times reported.

The exhibition title borrows from a 1936 tourism poster produced by Zionist institutions to promote Jewish travel to Palestine — a historical reference organizers use to foreground contested narratives around Palestinian land and representation.

The 16 works were selected for political significance and visual symbolism, drawn from posters produced in or for Palestine over six decades. The Korean alliance also distributes Korean-language translations of Palestinian poetry and Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement materials, according to the Korea Times.

Organizers said the Seoul exhibition aims to address what they described as a silence in South Korea's art scene on the subject of Palestine, drawing parallels between Palestinian visual resistance and Korea's protest graphic tradition — from 1980s pro-democracy prints to imagery tied to recent impeachment demonstrations.

The exhibition previously ran at CORD from April 1 through 18 before moving to Faces gallery in Yeonnam-dong, where it remains on view through May 4.