An old salt warehouse on Jeungdo Island in Sinan-gun is being transformed into a new sensory space through art. The "Salt's Time" art project will open Wednesday at the Taepyeong Salt Farm salt warehouse complex.
The project was conceived to reinterpret the warehouses — left idle as the salt industry gave way to solar energy development — as artistic objects. Supported through the Korea Artists Welfare Foundation's arts planning program, six artists participated: Kim Jin-gyu, Jeon Hee-kyung, Jeong Gyeong-mi, Jeong Chi-gu, Jin Hyeong-ju and Han Seok-gyeong.
The artists began their work with a single question: what kind of time does a salt warehouse hold? They approached salt as a substance born from the sea — the origin of life — and as a symbol of human labor, existence and purification beyond death, expressing these themes through video, installation, archiving and performance.
Salt is a crystallization of life shaped by seawater, sunlight, time and human labor, and the salt warehouse has long been the place that held those crystals. The project aims to unpack the traces of time and the material qualities embedded in salt and salt farms through art, giving visitors something to feel and experience firsthand.
Three warehouse buildings are connected along a corridor stretching more than 200 meters, built primarily from discarded wooden planks salvaged from the salt farm walkways — paths trodden by countless workers over the years. Visitors can walk the path as if treading the salt farm's own planks, moving through the three warehouses in sequence to take in the works.
Jeon Hee-kyung, the artist who conceived the project, said it "began not from a desire to redecorate the salt warehouse, but from looking anew at the time and landscape that already existed here." Jeon added: "I hope the open day offers visitors a chance to encounter a familiar place through the medium of art, with a slightly different sense of it."
The Salt Warehouse Open Day, marking the project's launch, will be held Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. at the Taepyeong Salt Farm salt warehouse on Jeungdo Island in Sinan-gun, after which the site will be open for regular visits. The official opening is scheduled for late March 2027, to coincide with the Taepyeong Salt Farm's first harvest ceremony. For more information, contact the Salt Museum at 061-275-0829.
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