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BaramNara’s 30th Anniversary, Reimagined Through Traditional Craft: 《Wind of Thirty, Carrying on Tradition》

Marking its 30th year of service, BaramNara has returned in a rather unexpected form. The thief, squirrel, and Four Guardian Deities from the game have been reinterpreted through lacquer, mother-of-pearl, dancheong, and embroidery, then hung as traditional craft works in Gyejodang Hall at Gyeongbokgung Palace.

The exhibition is titled 《Wind of Thirty, Carrying on Tradition》, created through a collaboration between BaramNara, Borderless—the Nexon Foundation’s social contribution initiative—and the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage. It is not the sort of subject I usually cover when writing about games, but the more I looked into it, the more interesting the project became, so I decided to pull together the exhibition details, the works and artists involved, and the support structure for emerging artists behind it.

01. Borderless, a project that opens game IP to creative interpretation

Borderless is an ongoing social contribution project run by the Nexon Foundation with the aim of breaking down the boundaries between games and the cultural arts. It offers game IP to creators as a source of inspiration, while also supporting both the creation of the resulting works and opportunities for audiences to experience them. For this exhibition, the participants were emerging artists studying traditional crafts.

It is common for game companies to produce merchandise based on their own IP. This is something different. The IP is opened to creators outside the company, and the interpretation is left entirely in the artists’ hands.

Within that broader effort, the branch focused on traditional crafts is known as Borderless Craft. The second Craft edition, held at Deoksugung Palace in 2024 under the title “Wizard of Time: Toward Another World,” was a collaboration between inheritors of intangible heritage and contemporary craft artists, and all merchandise proceeds were donated to a support program for emerging artists at the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage. Last November, “BORDERLESS – Tradition, Opening the Gate Between Dimensions” was held at Saengmulbang Hall in Gyeongbokgung Palace using MapleStory and DNF IP.

This exhibition continues in that same vein. Rather than a one-off anniversary event, it is this year’s result from a support project that has been sustained over several years.

02. The exhibition runs at Gyejodang Hall in Gyeongbokgung through September 21

Category	Details
Exhibition Title	Wind of Thirty, Carrying on Tradition
Dates	September 9, 2026 (Wed) – September 21 (Mon)
Venue	Gyejodang Hall, Gyeongbokgung Palace
Viewing Hours	9:30 AM – 5:30 PM
Last Entry to Gyeongbokgung	5:00 PM
Closed	Tuesday
Exhibition Admission	Free
Gyeongbokgung Admission Fee	3,000 won (free for those age 24 and under)

The exhibition itself is free, but because it is inside Gyeongbokgung, visitors still need to pay the palace admission fee of 3,000 won. If you are 24 or younger, that fee is waived as well. In practical terms, you just need to avoid the Tuesday closure when planning a visit.

The word “irip (而立)” in the title refers to the age of thirty. Here, it is used as a traditional expression to describe a game that has reached its thirtieth year.

The exhibition includes 15 works in total: five traditional craft pieces based on the BaramNara IP and 10 works by students from the Department of Traditional Arts and Crafts at the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage.

03. Five traditional craft works inspired by BaramNara

Title	Main Motif	Participating Artist(s)	Traditional Technique
The Thief, Riding the Wind	Thief, squirrel	Yang Ho-seong, Choi Hyo-ryeong, Han Hye-in	Dry lacquer · lacquerware · mother-of-pearl
Guardian Deities Jingye Table	Four Guardian Deities	Lee Sol-chan, Kim Jeong-woo	Ceramics · traditional roof tiles
A Collar Holding the Wind	Four Guardian Deities	Kim Hee-seon	Traditional painting
Yongjeonseol Mansangdo	Yongjeonseol	Ahn Yu-jin, Lee Dong-min	Dancheong · traditional painting
An Ear Pouch Bearing the Wishes of a Squirrel and Rabbit	Squirrel, rabbit	Ahn Eun-jeong	Traditional embroidery

The Thief, Riding the Wind

This sculpture renders the thief and the NPC squirrel in dry lacquer, lacquer, and mother-of-pearl. Dry lacquer is a technique in which form is built up through repeated layers of lacquer. In a sense, it uses one of the slowest, most cumulative methods imaginable to depict the fastest class in the game.

Artist Yang Ho-seong holds a qualification as a lacquer craft technician for cultural heritage restoration and primarily works in dry lacquer sculpture. Artist Choi Hyo-ryeong holds qualifications in lacquerwork, gilding, and conservation treatment, and focuses on metal and cloisonné. Artist Han Hye-in creates figurines and sculptural works based on lacquer, incorporating traditional lacquer techniques into contemporary forms and character-based work. It would be hard to imagine a better combination for translating game characters into lacquer.

Guardian Deities Jingye Table

This ceramic work reinterprets the Four Guardian Deities that protect beginners through the texture of ancient ruins. It combines the clear, restrained feel of white porcelain with the coarse, sandy surface of traditional roof tiles to express both the guardian deities and the form of a traditional game board.

What makes the piece especially interesting is the division of materials. Artist Lee Sol-chan is a certified trainee under a nationally designated intangible cultural heritage master potter and works in ceramics using clay as a medium. Artist Kim Jeong-woo is a certified trainee under a nationally designated intangible cultural heritage master tile maker and works from the materials and production methods of traditional roof tiles. Ceramics and roof tiles are both fired clay, but they belong to entirely different worlds in use and texture. This work is, in that sense, the meeting point of two specialized fields within a single piece.

The Four Guardian Deities are among the first choices players make on BaramNara’s character creation screen. The idea of shaping a memory that remains even for people who have been away from the game for years into the texture of ruins feels especially fitting for a 30th anniversary.

A Collar Holding the Wind

This painting personifies the Four Guardian Deities as figures dressed in traditional clothing. The four are distinguished by the directional colors of blue, red, white, and black, while each figure’s original divine-beast form appears behind them, allowing both versions to be read together within a single composition. The outward appearance has changed completely, but the symbolic system remains intact.

Kim Hee-seon is an illustrator whose work is rooted in traditional painting. She has long expressed Korean color and gently playful storytelling through her own visual perspective.

Yongjeonseol Mansangdo

This work reinterprets the boss monster Yongjeonseol through the techniques and visual language of traditional dancheong. Dancheong is the decorative painting applied to wooden palace and temple architecture. Because it operates within established rules of pattern and color, its starting point is fundamentally different from that of freely drawn painting. To bring in a figure that exists outside those rules, like a game boss monster, the form has to be reorganized to fit the grammar of ornament. It is less a direct transfer of the original than an act of translation.

The setting also gives the work particular force. Once you step outside Gyejodang Hall, the rafters and eaves painted in the same technique continue overhead. In that sense, the exhibition space and the building are speaking the same visual language.

Artist Ahn Yu-jin holds qualifications as a painting technician for cultural heritage restoration and as a certified trainee in dancheong, and works on the basis of traditional dancheong technique and aesthetics. Artist Lee Dong-min holds the same painting technician qualification and has continued to study dancheong with a particular interest in the materials and modes of expression used in traditional painting.

An Ear Pouch Bearing the Wishes of a Squirrel and Rabbit

This textile work embroiders a squirrel and rabbit onto a traditional ear pouch. An ear pouch was a small pouch worn while carrying personal items as a wish for good fortune. Here, monsters once hunted in early-game areas have been transformed into symbols of blessing.

Ahn Eun-jeong is a traditional embroidery artist with 14 years of experience and has worked steadily across a range of forms, including embroidered pouches, rank badges, and bojagi wrapping cloths.

04. The support structure for emerging artists behind the exhibition

Alongside the five IP-based works, 10 student works from the Department of Traditional Arts and Crafts at the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage are also on display. On the surface, this may look like a 30th anniversary event, but at its core it is a support program for emerging artists.

The participants are students studying traditional culture, including cultural heritage restoration technicians and skilled workers, as well as certified trainees in nationally designated intangible cultural heritage. The trainee and technician credentials attached to each artist earlier in the article speak to that. Their names may not yet be widely known, but they are people who have already undergone serious training in their respective fields.

Beginning in April, the Nexon Foundation selected currently enrolled students with professional qualifications and supported the production of their works, while also separately providing exhibition opportunities for 10 students. In addition, a total of 67.18 million won was delivered by combining donations from the Nexon Foundation with voluntary contributions gathered from Nexon employees in celebration of the 30th anniversary.

From a creator’s point of view, there is a real difference between support that only covers production costs and support that also opens up an exhibition venue. That is even more true when the venue is Gyeongbokgung Palace.

05. It would be a shame to stop at the artworks alone

It is best to activate the web catalog mission before going in. Accessed via the on-site QR code, it lets visitors explore the palace as a peddler squirrel while solving questions related to the works. Because it encourages a second, closer look at the pieces, it makes a noticeable difference compared with simply walking through. After completing the mission, visitors can stop by the reward booth in front of Gyejodang Hall to receive a commemorative exhibition ticket that includes a BaramNara in-game item coupon.

The place to view the goods and the place to buy them are not the same. Borderless merchandise created with motifs from the traditional craft works can be seen in person at Walsuk’s General Store. On-site purchase is not available, however; sales instead opened on the idus website from September 9. A portion of the proceeds will go toward supporting the continued creative activities of the participating Borderless artists. If there was a work you particularly liked, a purchase here helps connect that interest to the artist’s next project. There is also a photo zone, and a snapshot event is currently underway on the Borderless Instagram account.

06. Closing thoughts

When people hear the phrase “game IP exhibition,” they usually picture a fan event lined with concept art and figures. This exhibition feels different. The game provides only the source material; the interpretation belongs to emerging artists. As an anniversary format, it struck me as a notably healthy one—a 30-year-old game handing its characters over to young creators in another field and seeing what comes back.

I would especially recommend it to three groups. If you have played BaramNara before, there is a particular pleasure in seeing familiar characters from memory transformed through lacquer and dancheong. Even if you do not know the game, anyone interested in traditional crafts or nationally designated intangible cultural heritage will find a rare opportunity to see the work of certified trainees and skilled practitioners in one place. And if you are planning an autumn outing to Gyeongbokgung, the exhibition fits naturally into the route.

The exhibition continues at Gyejodang Hall in Gyeongbokgung until September 21. As long as you avoid the Tuesday closure, it should be an easy visit to plan.

Related Links

• Nexon Foundation Borderless exhibition details: https://borderless.nexonfoundation.org/news/proceeding/3532778

• BaramNara official notice: https://baram.nexon.com/Notice/List/1/149790

• idus Borderless goods: https://www.idus.com/v2/event/regular/14fbae10-d433-48e2-96f8-e18e777ec317

Sources

The exhibition schedule and visitor information, along with the introductions to the works and artists, were prepared based on official materials from Nexon Foundation Borderless and the official BaramNara notice. Details on the scale of support and the opening event were referenced from media coverage by Yonhap News, Inven, and other outlets.

Image source: Nexon Foundation