The special exhibition "From Dots to the World: 100 Years of Hunmaengjeongeum" opened on the 7th at the National Museum of World Writing Systems in Yeonsu-gu, Incheon. The National Museum of World Writing Systems, the National Hangeul Museum, and the Songam Braille Library organized it together. The exhibition runs through 2027, the organizers said. The exhibition takes as its starting point the fact that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the promulgation of Hunmaengjeongeum.
Hunmaengjeongeum is the Hangeul braille system created by Park Du-seong. It uses six dots as its basic unit.
Press a fingertip to the paper and raised bumps catch against it. The system was designed so that the arrangement of those fine bumps alone can write every sound in Korean. The paper is thicker than ordinary printing paper, and scratching it with a fingernail produces a dry sound. The exhibition title "From Dots to the World" points to the path along which combinations of six bumps moved from letters to books, and from books to the people who read them.
The museum is running programs tied to the exhibition through November. A braille hands-on session will be held for three days from the 8th to the 10th. On the 9th, Hangeul Day, a family-motto scroll-making session has been arranged. On the 6th, the day before the opening, a press briefing was held in the exhibition hall.
This year's Hangeul Day falls on the 580th anniversary of the promulgation of Hunminjeongeum. The 100th anniversary of Hangeul Day also comes around in the same year.
Another exhibition is running alongside it in Seoul. It is the special exhibition "1926 Infinity 2026" in the thematic gallery on the third floor of the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History in Jongno-gu. The National Hangeul Museum, the Korean Language Society, and the King Sejong Memorial Society co-organized it.
It covers the history of how Hangeul Day was designated a legal public holiday, then dropped, then restored. It closes in February 2027.
Visitors who take in both exhibitions come to learn that Hangeul Day has not always been treated the same way. There was a period when it was excluded from the public holidays, and restoring it also took time. Protecting a writing system does not end with designating a commemorative day once, and it takes the labor of writing and teaching it again each year.
Hunminjeongeum was inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World register in 1997. Inscription establishes a case for preservation. At the same time, it leaves the tension of whether to keep it inside a glass case or to keep it in circulation as a writing system in use now.
The situation on the Hunmaengjeongeum side is clearer. Braille is an active writing system still being read and embossed today, so placing it on a preservation list cannot by itself address what happens on books, signs, and elevator buttons.
That appears to be why the museum laid out the braille hands-on session over three days rather than as a side branch attached to the exhibition. Without pressing it with the hand, the system of six dots remains only a picture in an explanatory panel.
The exhibition hall schedule in Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, falls within this week's Hangeul Day holiday. The braille hands-on session runs for three days from the 8th to the 10th. "1926 Infinity 2026" on the third floor of the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History in Seoul is open through February 2027. Visitors who want to stop by both places in the same week will find it easier to set aside the 9th.
