From March 24-30, 2019, the Korea Foundation hosted a visit to Korea by ten distinguished figures from the arts and cultural sector of ten different countries, including Argentina, India and Russia.

The delegation, the first to be invited through the Foundation’s invitation program this year, consisted of high-ranking officials and dignitaries from the respective countries’ museums, Olympic committees, libraries and arts councils. The aim of their visit was to promote cultural exchanges and cooperation and help spread Korean culture around the world.

To deepen their understanding of Korean culture and society, the invited guests attended a lecture by Professor Andrew Eungi Kim of Korea University’s Graduate School of International Studies, visited a special exhibition about the March First Independence Movement at the National Museum of Contemporary Korean History, and explored the Seoul Arts Center to learn more about Korean arts and history.

During her stay in Korea, Nora Ethel Hochbaum, Director of the Remembrance Park in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which is dedicated to the victims of state-sponsored terrorism, visited the May 18th National Cemetery and the May 18 Democratization Movement Archives in Gwangju, a pivotal place in the Republic of Korea’s democracy movement. She expressed her hope for a future cooperation on joint projects to commemorate the democracy movements of both Argentina and Korea.

Luigina Orlandi, Director for International Cooperation at the Vatican Library, had a follow-up discussion with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea on a joint project to find s and materials related to the history of relations between Korea and the Holy See. Enjoying the opportunity to communicate directly with Korean people, she also delivered a lecture on the past, present and future of the Vatican Library to the seminarians of the Catholic University of Korea.

Brian Lewis, President of Trinidad and Tobago’s Olympic Committee met with Lee Hee-beom, former President of the Organizing Committee for the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics, to learn more about Korea’s experience of hosting the Olympic Games and discuss cooperation in sports exchanges. As he is also interested in Taekwondo, he visited Kukkiwon, the World Taekwondo Headquarters, to discuss the dispatch of taekwondo coaches to Trinidad and Tobago and the offering of technical assistance.