Venue

Originally built in 1957, this place was once a Hanok (traditional Korean house) style inn. Reflecting its seven-room structure from its days as a small inn, it briefly operated as a café under the name “7 Coffee.” For the Gangneung International Art Festival 2025 (GIAF25), the building reawakened as ‘The Seven-Roomed Yeogwan’—a cultural threshold where nostalgia and modernity converge. Located at a key intersection along the main festival path near Changpo Bridge, the space naturally draws in passing visitors.

During GIAF25, SUH Dasom led a participatory workshop Things Non-negligible, themed around Korean goblins (dokkaebi). The artist invited participants into a creative engagement through imagined foods, sounds, and place a dokkaebi might enjoy. In this space layered with past and present, participants immersed in its unique and artistic atmosphere.

This venue also reflects Gangneung’s evolving identity as a city celebrated for its food culture—a direction further affirmed by its 2023 designation as a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy. At GIAF22, social chef YouSun Ko explored this theme through Myeongju-dong Grandma’s Recipe. In the same spirit, GIAF25 opening ceremony featured a collaborative food project by SUH Dasom and elderly women from Myeongju-dong. Created together with the community, this event—merging tradition and contemporary art—demonstrated Gangneung’s creative capacity to translate its distinctive food culture into the language of art.

SUH Dasom