Festival Director · Spatial Lighting Designer · Hanji Lighting Researcher
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"Painting dreams and hope for people with brush and paint on the beautiful hanji lent to us by nature."
"Too often, we simplify festivals. Even when time is short, budgets are tight, or event organizers propose unreasonable ideas—if we focus only on the joy of attendees, we must dig deeper in our thinking. A festival site isn’t a place that sells happiness—it’s where residents purchase it. What if we shift our perspective from tourists to residents?"
Q1. “Hello, Director Im. Happy New Year—Im In Year (壬寅年). Could you share your New Year greetings for 2022 with our readers?”
A1. Hello, EventGuide subscribers! I’m Lim Young-taek, the Artistic Director at Gleamtory – A Fun Story of Lanterns. Wishing everyone a healthy and prosperous new year in this Im In Year of the Black Tiger. I especially hope that those working in festivals will advance this year more firmly, proudly, and calmly than ever before.
Q2. Could you introduce yourself and your main activities as the Artistic Director of Gleamtory?
A2. I began organizing events in 2002 as the event planning team leader at Namsangol Hanok Village. In 2007, I directed the opening and closing ceremonies of the 88th National Sports Festival in Gwangju, and in 2011 I led the Daegu World Championships experience pavilion. I fell in love with hanji lanterns at the 2011 Seoul Lantern Festival and have been studying them ever since—now largely working as a “Hanji Lighting Researcher,” perhaps more so than as a festival director.
Overseas, I served as Production Director for “The Way Home” at the 2016 Totally Thames Festival in the UK, a meaningful opportunity to share Korean hanji lamps with a global audience. In 2020, I was invited to exhibit “A Royal Stroll” at the Mid-Autumn Festival in Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay. Last year, as a guest artist at the Gwangju Design Biennale, I displayed the “Countach Kite.” Other notable projects include “Sea of Imagination” at the 2021 Wonju Hanji Festival, “Journey of Light” for the 70th National Theater commemorative light festival and “Sea of Light” at the Winter Tank Light Festival, and serving as Artistic Director for the Seoul Lantern Festival in 2018 and 2019.
In essence, what I do is "use brush and paint on the beautiful hanji nature lends us to paint dreams and hope for people." I find my greatest fulfillment in those moments of emotional resonance with viewers illuminated by soft, warm hanji light. As Korea’s first "Hanji Lighting Researcher," I'd say I've even created a whole new profession. I intend to continue creating meaningful work moving forward.
Q3. As a Hanji Lighting Researcher, you’ve crafted lanterns for festivals like the Yangcheon Light Festival, the Gangdong Prehistoric Culture Festival (“The Prehistoric People”), and “Sea of Light” in Geumcheon. Can you describe your process and how hanji lanterns enhance light festivals?
A3. Creating hanji lanterns is labor-intensive and collaborative. First we build the base structure—wooden stands, then shapes formed with pipes and wires. Simultaneously, electrical wiring is installed. After the frame is ready, we apply hanji paper, paint it, and finish with coating. The process is meticulous, but I never confine myself to only hanji. I derive ideas by experiencing the space directly. If the concept calls for it, I’ll design with any material that fits the budget and context; given more development time, I experiment with new materials, e.g., the 7-meter “Modiff Butterfly” made from dichroic film. Still, no alternative matches hanji’s realism, three-dimensionality, and gentle glow—so hanji remains central.
Over years of experience, I’ve observed that citizens prefer hanji installations over ubiquitous illumination or LED art, wherever they encounter them. The Seoul Lantern Festival at Cheonggyecheon, for instance, attracts about 2 to 2.5 million visitors over 17 days each November, proving its enduring popularity.
Q4. Lanterns typically appear at grand festivals like lantern or light festivals. Beyond these, how can lanterns serve as a valuable cultural asset?
A4. In 2020, the Korean lantern parade was registered as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, a long-standing global tradition. Even older records like Dongguk Sesigi cite the Jongno lantern festival as the year’s greatest spectacle. Art flourish when utility exists—just like woodworking or ceramics, hanji has been a staple in Korean life through generations and belongs in daily use.
Today, hanji is integrating into new forms of play—through festivals like the Seoul Lantern Festival, Wonju Hanji Festival, and Jeonju Hanji Festival—held nationwide within heritage night events. The largest display arguably remains the Yeondeunghoe (Lotus Lantern Festival) on Buddha’s Birthday, where temples showcase majestic hanji lanterns.
Beyond festivals, hanji is used in home and business interiors—room lanterns, wall lights, pendants, even performance props, stage deco, and architectural details. Local governments also leverage hanji lanterns in senior job programs, education, tourism, nightscape projects, and urban renewal. As nighttime tourism grows, the applications for hanji lanterns will only expand further.
Q5. With growing concern for climate change, how can light festivals evolve into eco-friendly events?
A5. It’s true that climate action is critical—but “green festivals” can imply tension between regulation and autonomy. For light festivals, some steps include using low-energy LEDs, designing energy-saving lighting systems, avoiding rapid flashing or harsh colors, and optimizing media facades to minimize glare and waste. Structurally, avoiding plastics and using natural materials like bamboo makes a difference.
Lyon’s light festival serves as a prime example of how illumination can boost a city’s identity and social wellbeing. Light festivals, when designed with social inclusion in mind, can provide underserved communities with pride and renewal through light. When aligned with eco-systems and cultural tourism, they become powerful assets that nurture both economy and culture.
Q6. As festivals transition into the living with COVID era, what strategies ensure successful events?
A6. The pandemic brought near-total cancellation of festivals. According to the Ministry of Culture, 82% of 968 festivals in 2020 were canceled; only 152 were held in hybrid formats. This devastated not just tourism and local economies, but entire event ecosystems. The language shifted—‘on-tact’, hybrid, metaverse, VR, AR—revealing a pivot from structure to delivery channel.
Festivals are diverse in purpose, scale, venue, and audience expectation. Models like extending durations or hybrid formats, as we’ve seen with Wonju or Boryeong Mud Festival, can work. The Cultural Heritage Agency even enabled adding online components to heritage night programs in 36 regions.
Offline festivals with creative adaptations are also emerging. The Chuncheon Mime Festival, for instance, distributed performances across neighborhoods and extended duration to embed itself into community life. As working conditions intensified, more festival formats and audience access points emerged.
Korea’s IT capabilities uniquely enable ongoing virtual engagement, allowing expansion beyond time and place. Over two years, we’ve experimented with dispersed festivals, prolonged timelines, disruptive formats, and embedded daily exhibition formats. Despite change, the core values—communal experience, playfulness, transgressiveness—remain vital. Festivals must clarify their identity and mission beyond modality. Even “alone together” paradoxes reveal the need to preserve a festival’s spirit. I believe building festivals that endure beyond the pandemic begins with clarity of essence.
Global festivals endure because of originality, cultural consistency rooted in tradition, and grassroots participation. These cannot be overlooked.
Q7. What is your personal philosophy on festivals?
A7. For me, a festival is simply “life.” Imagine life without festivals—society would suffer an unimaginable void. We often define festivals by "community" or "play," but I insist the essence of a festival is “people.” The owners of festivals aren’t the events—they’re the local residents. How often do we seek residents’ opinions when planning? Do we assume what they might like without asking?
We must escape top-down, performance-driven festival models. We know the formula—resident participation is key. But even the most famous festival fails without local involvement. Can a festival be born in one month and executed in three and still be meaningful to residents? We need to reconsider what changes we prioritize.
A line from a drama resonates: "Sure, buttons make coffee appear—but the thousands of steps before pressing the button are what matters." We tend to take shortcuts in festival production, but when we focus solely on attendees, we miss the deeper challenge: understanding that festivals are places where residents purchase happiness, not buy attendance.
Q8. What are your future aspirations?
A8. Post-pandemic, I’m envisioning how to express Korean millennium-old hanji culture through play—not just exhibitions, but parades with shared participation where residents co-create. I hope to launch such a project later this year or next spring.
My role model is the Nebuta Matsuri in Aomori, Japan—driven from planning through evaluation by community involvement at every level. Local volunteers fund and build floats and organize the festival, making participants both planners and performers. It’s sustainable tradition. Children’s Nebuta ensures lifelong engagement. They even run permanent exhibition spaces where Nebuta artisans offer experiences and crafts, fueling tourism even outside festival periods.
I want to build a lantern village with story-rich, enduring tradition and communal spirit. It will take time and commitment, but I’m excited for the journey.
Q9. Finally, any closing thoughts?
A9. Experts predict that social and natural disasters—pandemics, climate change, environmental breakdown—will increase rather than diminish. When disasters strike, local governments cancel festivals, which collapses the festival ecosystem and leaves creative professionals in the dark.
Festival professionals know the tourism value of festivals—but there’s deep mistrust in government-run festival support. We need policy reflection. We should guarantee the independence of festivals, so creative organizers are recognized as vital contributors to arts ecology—not just paid contractors.
We need legal frameworks for fair compensation when disasters strike, and legislation like an Event Industry Development Act to sustain the sector’s growth.
Thank you.
Reported by: EventGuide Journalist, Shin Ji-eun
Website: https://blog.naver.com/finux