Seoul to display popular foreign poems at safety screen doors in subway stations

[Courtesy of Seoul City]

SEOUL -- As part of the capital city's culture project aimed at promoting poetry and creating a comfortable ambiance in subway stations, Seoul will exhibit foreign poems on platform screen doors.

While primarily serving as safety barriers, the screen doors in Seoul's subway stations also function as notice boards and art installations to improve the platform environment. Poems authored by both renowned poets and amateur writers will be showcased on transparent doors.

Seoul City said that by the end of the first quarter of 2024, a total of 27 subway stations will feature poems by foreign artists on their screen doors. Initially focusing on stations in central Seoul, these doors will exhibit 24 poems in 13 languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, and Vietnamese, presented in both their original language and Korean translation.

The capital city government initiated the project to display foreign poems in subway stations in August 2023. Seoul aims to instill a sense of pride among foreign travelers and provide Seoulites with access to diverse international literary works.

In October, Seoul plans to introduce poems from India, Greece, and Peru, expanding the selection to 45 poems from 18 countries. "We will include more poems in three additional foreign languages based on requests from foreign embassies in Seoul," a Seoul official said in a statement on March 20.