The 2026 DMZ OPEN Festival opened on 12 October at Paju Imjingak Pyeonghwa Nuri and venues across Goyang, running through 29 November. Hosted by Gyeonggi Province under the theme 'Open the Line, Connect the Life', the festival treats the demilitarized zone, the emblem of the Korean Peninsula's division, as something to be opened up rather than sealed off: a line that can connect people to one another and everyday life to the wider world, generating what organisers describe as new currents of peace.

The DMZ OPEN Exhibition anchors the programme at Imjingak Pyeonghwa Nuri. This year's edition, titled 'STAGING', reframes the DMZ from a zone of control and separation into a theatre of relationships where memory, ecology and coexistence stay in motion. Fourteen artists from Korea and abroad present work on the zone's history and ecology, including Ahn Kyuchul, Sun Mu, Abigail Raphael Collins, Suyeon Yun, Denise Bertschi, Jinyeong Yeon, Choi Gene Uk, Heinkuhn Oh, Park Chan-kyong and Kahee Jeong.

Music carries the second strand. The DMZ OPEN International Music Festival runs from 23 to 25 October at Aram Music Hall in Goyang Aram Nuri under the theme 'PACE: Returning to Peace', unfolding in four movements: 'Pulse (The Pulse of a Beginning)', 'Awaken (Peace Awakening)', 'Connect (Hearts Connected)' and 'Eternity (Peace That Continues)'. The DMZ OPEN Eco Peace Forum takes place on 28 October at Sono Calm Goyang under the theme 'Opening the Way to Peaceful Coexistence'. Co-organised by Gyeonggi Province, the Ministry of Unification and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, it expects around 350 participants, including Korean and international experts and local residents. The keynote comes from Valérie Gelézeau of France's School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, followed by peace sessions from the co-hosts and a Northeast Asia Smart Eco-City seminar on the ecology track.

Park Hyun-seok, director general of the Gyeonggi Province Peace and Cooperation Bureau, said the province hopes art, music and international dialogue will let people experience the DMZ's ecological and peaceful values in everyday life and connect the zone with the wider world. Programme and participation details are on the festival's official Instagram, @dmzopen_official.