The ‘Meongjam’ State: Why This Korean Pop-Up is All About Doing Nothing

Daniel Kim 2026.06.02 Views

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At 4 p.m. on the 28th, I stepped into Seongsuyul (SEONGSU YUL), a music and cultural complex in Seongsu-dong, Seoul. The first thing that struck me was a quiet unfamiliarity.

The neighborhood’s usual buzz and street noise were close by, but once you pass through the door the air feels different.

This isn’t a typical furniture pop-up where products are displayed and explained. It’s a place where visitors lie on beds to listen to music, watch videos, and simply do nothing.

iloom

iloom, the home-furniture brand of Fursys Group, is running a motion-bed experience pop-up called The Motion Club at Seongsuyul.

The pop-up extends the MOTION — There Was a Problem campaign featuring actor Byun Wooseok. The intention is to turn online interest in motion furniture into an in-person experience.

The central idea is the Korean notion of “meongjam” — a state that’s neither fully asleep nor fully awake. iloom recreates that middle ground on its motion beds, where the body relaxes and thoughts loosen.

Visitors lie back, take in music and video content, and shift their position until they find the angle that feels right for rest.

At first, lying down on a motion bed felt slightly awkward; reclining in the middle of a pop-up isn’t an everyday act.

But when the backrest rose slowly and the foot section gently supported my legs, my tension eased quickly. The posture — neither sitting nor fully flat — naturally drew my eyes to the screen and the room beyond.

After a while, I forgot I was in the heart of Seongsu. Lying back and watching the screens felt like stepping away from the grind of daily life.

The thoughts that usually filled my head loosened, and at some point watching the screen felt less like observing and more like floating inside it.

When I lay facing the floor-to-ceiling windows, the outside view read like a scene. One bed became my private theater, and the music its soundtrack.

The space’s appeal lies in its restraint: it doesn’t shove product demonstrations forward. Here the motion bed isn’t something to be explained so much as a vessel for experience.

Visitors test the bed’s movements with the remote, but soon they focus less on buttons and more on how they feel.

One angle invites reading; another calls for closing your eyes and listening. The product doesn’t dominate the moment — it settles naturally into how people rest.

Especially revealing is the meongjam program that pairs video and music. It shows the motion bed’s character in an intuitive, direct way.

Lying back and watching the screen, reality softened. In some scenes I felt as if I were walking through a dream; in others my body felt small, planted in the middle of nature.

At times it felt like resting as a tiny figure among towering trees and grasses; at others, like entering a small, private forest cinema where no one disturbs you.

What was striking was the presence of others lying in the same space.

iloom

In a typical exhibition people browse and move on, but here everyone lies in similar positions and shares the same music.

You don’t converse with strangers, yet you feel a shared rhythm — listening to the same sounds and resting at the same pace. Silence doesn’t feel awkward; it becomes part of the space.

At first visitors scanned the room; gradually they settled in, some closing their eyes, others finding a comfortable posture and staying longer.

Some watched the videos; others seemed nearly asleep. Contrary to the bustle the word “pop-up” implies, the tempo here is deliberate and quiet.

I also found the space well suited for couples. Lying together to listen to music and watch video makes for a different kind of date.

You don’t need to talk much or continually consume. Listening to the same music from separate beds or resting side by side is enough.

iloom

It’s also a good stop for people wandering Seongsu’s cafes and boutiques who want to slow down for a moment.

iloom collaborated with 11 acts for the pop-up, including the band ADOY, singer Ozone, Folkranos, Asian Pop Festival, poets Hwang In-chan and Lee Jeya, and yoga instructor Choi Ye-seul, offering date-specific programs.

Live performances, cinema, yoga, and readings were all designed to be experienced entirely from motion beds.

On Seongsuyul’s third floor, the music-and-video meongjam program runs, while the rooftop garden lounge on the fifth floor hosts the ongoing Meongjam Study, Nupseo program, which combines poetry and music.

The Motion Club is interesting because it changes how people try furniture. Rather than describing a bed’s comfort with words, it gets visitors to lie down, space out, and rest.

iloom

This pop-up lets visitors experience that a motion bed is more than a moving backrest — it can be a seat for music, a theater seat for film, and a personal space to rest. The pop-up runs through May 10.