I Visited Korea’s Only Silk Museum in Jinju and Met the Designer Behind the PyeongChang Snow Fairies

I almost skipped the Jinju Silk Museum entirely. I was in Jinju for the fortress, maybe a walk along the Nam River, and then back to Busan. But a friend mentioned that KeySook Geum — the artist behind the “Snow Fairy” costumes from the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics opening ceremony — had a special exhibition running here, and that she’d be doing an in-person artist talk. That changed my plans.

Jinju sits in the western half of South Gyeongsang Province, a midsize city that most international visitors pass through on the way to somewhere else. That’s a mistake. Beyond Jinjuseong Fortress and the Namgang Yudeung (Lantern) Festival held every October, this city has quietly been Korea’s silk capital for over a century — roughly 70% of all silk produced in the country comes from here. The Jinju Silk Museum, which opened in late 2024, is the first museum in Korea dedicated entirely to this heritage. It sits within the Silk Specialized Complex in Munsan-eup, about 10 km west of the city center, which is probably why almost no English-language travel content mentions it.

Essential Information

Detail	Info
Address	994 Worasan-ro, Munsan-eup, Jinju-si, Gyeongsangnam-do
Hours	10:00 AM – 6:00 PM (closed every Monday)
Admission	Adults ₩2,000 (~$1.30 / €1.10) · Youth ₩1,000 (~$0.70 / €0.60) · Children ₩500 (~$0.35 / €0.30)
Parking	Free
Indoor/Outdoor	Fully indoor — weather-proof year-round

Getting there	Route	Time	Cost
From Seoul	KTX from Seoul Station → Jinju Station	~3 hr 30 min	₩57,600 (~$38 / €33)
From Busan	Intercity bus, Seobu (Sasang) Terminal → Jinju	~1 hr 30 min	₩11,000 (~$7.30 / €6.20)
From Jinju Station	Taxi (recommended)	~15 min	₩9,000–10,000 (~$6–7 / €5–6)
From Jinju Bus Terminal	Bus 290/390/391 from Nonghyup Jungang stop	20–25 min	~₩1,500 (~$1 / €0.85)

If you’re arriving by KTX, take a taxi from Jinju Station — the bus connections involve a transfer at Gaeyang Intersection, and the cab only costs around $6.

A century of silk, told on the second floor

I got there about an hour before the artist talk and wandered through the permanent exhibition on the second floor first. This turned out to be a smart move.

The galleries trace the full arc of Jinju’s relationship with silk — from the origins of sericulture in East Asia, through trade along the Silk Road, to how this particular city industrialized the craft and became the center of Korea’s modern silk industry. There are looms, dyeing tools, and fabric samples from different eras, along with traditional Korean garments woven from local silk.

I’d always vaguely known Jinju was “famous for silk,” but seeing the actual machinery, the archival photographs, and the sheer variety of textiles gave that reputation real weight. You start to understand why the Korea Silk Research Institute was established here back in 1988, and why the city earned a UNESCO Creative City designation for Craft and Folk Art in 2019.

More importantly, starting with the permanent collection set up what came next. Walking from a century of traditional silk craft directly into a contemporary art exhibition made the transition feel completely natural — like watching the same material evolve across generations.

Floating in darkness: the KeySook Geum exhibition

If you watched the PyeongChang 2018 opening ceremony, you’ve already seen KeySook Geum’s work. She designed the ethereal white costumes worn by the placard bearers — the ones viewers around the world nicknamed the “Snow Fairies.” Those flowing, wire-structured garments that seemed to catch light with every step? That was her.

Her Seoul exhibition at the Seoul Museum of Craft Art drew record-breaking attendance — over a million visitors during its run — making it the most-attended solo show in Korean museum history. Now her work has come to Jinju under the title “Weaving Emptiness,” running through late September 2026.

Exhibition detail	Info
Title	Weaving Emptiness (by KeySook Geum)
Dates	May 5 – September 27, 2026
Location	2F Special Exhibition Hall, Jinju Silk Museum
Admission	Included with museum entry

Highlight	Why it matters
Nobang silk and silkworm cocoon sculptures	Traditional Jinju silk reimagined as contemporary sculptural material
Wire-armature dresses with beads and ribbons	Geum’s signature technique — the same approach behind the PyeongChang costumes
Black mirror floors (heukgyeong)	Reflective staging that doubles each piece, creating the illusion of floating
Directed lighting in darkened galleries	Up close you see the texture of every thread; step back and the work seems suspended in midair

The staging alone is worth the visit. The gallery uses black reflective floors combined with carefully angled spotlights, so each sculpture appears to hover in darkness, mirrored by its own reflection below. I’d seen photos beforehand and thought they looked like costumes for a fairy tale. Standing in the actual space felt closer to walking through someone’s dream.

The artist talk that changed everything

This is where my visit went from “interesting afternoon” to something I haven’t stopped thinking about.

KeySook Geum led a guided walk through the exhibition that day. We gathered in the lobby and followed her through the galleries while she explained the story behind each piece. On my own, I would have admired the sculptures, taken some photos, and moved on. Hearing her narrate the process changed what I was looking at.

She told us that one of the central inspirations for this body of work was a childhood memory: a spool of red cotton thread her mother once gave her, and the persimmon flowers that grew near her family home. Over time, those memories transformed. The cotton thread became wire. The persimmon blossoms became beads and ribbons. The delicate sculptures hanging in front of us weren’t abstract experiments — they were physical translations of memory, built layer by layer across decades.

That reframing made me slow down. I started noticing how the wire structures caught different light depending on where I stood, how certain pieces seemed to breathe when air moved through the gallery. These weren’t just objects. Each one carried a specific decision about what to keep and what to let go of.

The exhibition’s subtitle, “Weaving Emptiness,” draws on an Eastern philosophical concept: by deliberately letting go, you create room for new meaning to enter. It’s not about absence. It’s about clearing space. You can see the idea in the materials themselves — the wire dresses are structurally open, light passes through them, and their shadows become part of the artwork. They’re garments no one will ever wear, and that’s the point.

Someone in the audience asked exactly that — why make clothes no one can put on? Her answer: emptying isn’t about leaving nothing behind. It’s about shedding noise. Other people’s expectations, the pressure to rush, the impulse to fill every gap. What remains is something you actually chose.

After the guided tour, there was a Q&A session and a book signing. Someone asked how she’d sustained a creative practice for over 40 years. Her response was simple: you endure. Not everyone will like what you do, she said, but some people will. And if your own sense of self-worth is intact, that’s enough to keep going. Standing in a quiet gallery surrounded by four decades of meticulous work, that advice landed differently than it would have anywhere else.

I walked into the Jinju Silk Museum expecting a quick local stop and left rethinking how I look at traditional craft, contemporary art, and the quiet discipline of making something for 40 years. The permanent collection gives you context. The KeySook Geum exhibition gives you goosebumps. And if you happen to catch an artist talk, you leave with something that stays with you well after the trip is over. If you’re already heading to Jinju for Jinjuseong Fortress or the Namgang Lantern Festival, this is an easy half-day addition that hits completely differently from the usual fortress-and-food circuit — and if you’re making a day trip from Busan, just 90 minutes by bus, it might end up being the highlight.