Genre Painting for All 2026: make a Joseon character — free to 1 Nov

The Korea Heritage Service's Royal Palaces and Tombs Center and the Korea Heritage Agency have opened Genre Painting for All 2026, the online side of the autumn Royal Culture Festival. You pick clothes, hair, a face and a pose to build your own Joseon-era figure, and that figure then takes a place in a single festival painting alongside everyone else's. The organisers describe it as a way into the festival for people who cannot come to the palaces — which, for a reader outside Korea, is most of the point.

How do you take part?

Open pungsokdo.com in a browser and press Start. There is no app to install and no account to create. The first screen offers Korean or English, and a guide character called Goong-ee Doong-ee talks you through each step, so a first figure takes a few minutes.

The layout is built for a tall phone screen, so it is easier on a phone than on a computer. When you finish, the site shows where your figure has been placed in the picture.

What is new in 2026?

There is enough new to make a second visit worthwhile. The Korea Heritage Agency lists three kinds of change.

• Costume — the hwangchosam, a robe worn by female court entertainers who danced at royal banquets in the late Joseon period.
• Poses — about 40 more, from court dance moves to K-pop choreography, helmets and cheering.
• Range — more skin and hair colours, and the option of a figure using a wheelchair or accompanied by a child.

The festival notice also says clothing is not tied to age or gender: any hair and costume can be combined with any figure, so a woman in a gat (the black horsehair hat) or a man in the hwangchosam are both fair game.

Which painting does your character go into?

The stage is Banquet for the Governor of Pyeongan, a painting traditionally attributed to Kim Hong-do (1745–after 1806), Joseon's best-known genre painter. It shows a huge welcome feast for a newly appointed provincial governor, and its interest lies less in any one figure than in the crowds — a good match for a project in which many people make one picture.

The original belongs to the National Museum of Korea (Deoksu 5769). The e-museum site has a high-resolution image, and after playing it is fun to compare the two and spot which scenes were borrowed.

A glass-plate photograph of the same painting, taken under Japanese colonial rule, is held by the National Palace Museum of Korea (glass plate 3657). Set beside today's original, it shows how the work was recorded a century ago.

How many people have taken part?

The programme started in 2021, so 2026 is its sixth edition. 2025 drew 487,282 players, the most yet, and the five-year total is about 1.39 million. The Korea Heritage Agency credits much of last year's jump to primary-school classrooms.

Can teachers use it?

The festival gives away a teacher's lesson plan, slides and a sticker activity sheet, written for Korean primary-school social studies (grade 5 history and grades 3–4 local heritage). The sticker sheet splits a palace background across 30 A4 pages that a class tapes together and fills with character stickers to make its own group painting. The materials are in Korean and are licensed for teaching only; the contact is the festival team at royalculture1@kh.or.kr.

How is it different from the Royal Culture Festival at the palaces?

Genre Painting for All is the festival's online programme; the festival itself takes place on site in Seoul, on different dates and in a different way.

What can you do with your finished picture?

• Share it on social media or use it as a profile picture.
• No commercial use such as merchandise, and even non-commercial use beyond the personal — exhibiting or distributing it — is restricted.
• The notice mentions a social-media sharing event, but no prizes or entry rules had been published; watch the festival's Instagram, @royalculturefestival_official.

A festival you can join in five minutes

Heritage programmes that cost nothing, need no account and involve no trip to a palace are rare. Make a figure each with your family, and at the end of November you will have something to hunt for in the group picture. Play closes on 1 November.

Playing from abroad, and seeing the palaces in person

Everything happens in the browser, so it works from outside Korea: pick English on the opening screen and the menus and the guide's dialogue follow. There is nothing to download and nothing asks for a Korean phone number, card or ID. If you are in Seoul between 7 and 11 October, the on-site Royal Culture Festival spreads across the four main palaces and Jongmyo Shrine; the palaces' own English pages cover hours and admission, and individual festival programmes have their own booking rules, mostly through the Korean festival website. Outside the festival dates, the palaces are open as usual.