The Garden of Liberation is an immersive, story-driven 3D educational website that uncovers colonial influences embedded in Korean plant names. It brings attention to an underrepresented aspect of Korean history—often absent from textbooks and overlooked by both Korean and international audiences. This work positions interactive web design as a medium for postcolonial artistic expression and cultural memory, demonstrating how immersive storytelling and technical innovation can make these historical narratives accessible and emotionally resonant to global audiences.
 

During the Japanese colonial era, many native Korean plants were given scientific names by Japanese botanists, embedding a layer of imperial history into Korea’s natural landscape that remains largely unexamined.
 

The project follows Soyeon, a young Korean woman who discovers the name “Nakai,” a Japanese botanist, embedded in the scientific name of Mison-namu, a flowering tree unique to Korea, while visiting Changdeokgung Palace. This realization transports her into a symbolic hidden garden, where she uncovers the forgotten history behind its name and questions why a Japanese botanist’s name became embedded in the scientific identity of a tree found only in Korea.
 

The narrative unfolds across three acts: The Empire’s Eye (Nakai’s botanical imperialism rooted in Western scientific traditions and Japan’s colonial expansion), The Local Voice (Korean botanist Chang Hyung Doo’s resistance to imposed naming practices and his efforts to preserve native botanical identity), and The Meaning of a Name, centered on Mison-namu, whose Korean, Latin, and Japanese names each embody the colonial and cultural histories explored in the preceding acts. Users are invited to choose what to call the plant, transforming them from passive learners into active participants in cultural interpretation through a branching ending.
 

It is designed for Koreans reconnecting with cultural heritage hidden within plant names, and international audiences unfamiliar with this history of imperialism embedded in botanical naming. It encourages audiences to reconsider who holds the power to name, and how naming itself becomes an act of memory, erasure, or reclamation. The Garden of Liberation sits at the intersection of digital storytelling, cultural memory, and immersive media. More than a portfolio piece, it is a demonstration of technology as a medium for cultural preservation and historical empathy.