The Gosan Yun Seon-do Museum will hold a special exhibition titled "Gosan's Strings, Tuning the Heart" to mark the 355th anniversary of poet Yun Seon-do's death.
According to Haenam-gun, the exhibition — organized jointly by Haenam-gun in South Jeolla Province, the Nokudang Culture and Arts Foundation, and the National Museum of Korean Literature — will run from Friday through Dec. 31 at Chungheon-gak Hall within the Gosan Historic Site.
The exhibition introduces the musical heritage of Nokudang, Yun Seon-do's historic family home, including fragments of the geomungo zithers known as Gosan Yugeum and Ayang passed down through the Haenam Yun clan, as well as manuscripts including "Gorok," "Nangong Sinbo," "Asok Gasa" and "Eobusasisa."
The exhibition shows how the music of Nokudang — preserved in different forms — connected, through instruments, documents, scores and poetry, to the worlds of scholarship, artistic refinement, historical record and personal cultivation.
The exhibition is organized around four main themes. The first, "What is music to a seonbi?" — a seonbi being a Joseon-era scholar-gentleman — explores how scholars sought to cultivate their minds and order their lives through music.
The second section, "Gorok: The Records of Nokudang," centers on historical music manuscripts handed down at Nokudang, introducing the structure and construction diagrams of the seven-stringed geomungo.
The third, "A Tree of 600 Years, Witness to Time," presents surviving fragments of the Gosan Yugeum and Ayang instruments.
The final section, "Strings That Sound Again," uses restored reproductions — based on surviving fragments and historical documents — to explore the meaning of reconstruction and bring visitors closer to sounds that have been lost.
Throughout the exhibition, visitors can watch explanatory videos and take part in listening experiences ranging from the resonance of traditional instruments to sound reproduced on LP records, cassette tapes, CDs and smartphones, tracing how people have listened to music across the ages.
The exhibition follows last year's special show "The Table of a Clan House, Carried Down 600 Years" and opens Friday to coincide with the bulcheonwi ancestral rite day of Gosan Yun Seon-do, a ceremony honoring a figure of exceptional merit.
The opening ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at Chungheon-gak Hall within the Gosan Historic Site and will include a commemorative performance and the ancestral rite for Gosan Yun Seon-do.
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