“It’s like it’s literally a collection of youth,” Lee Hyeri, a member of BIGHIT MUSIC’s BX Department, said, describing BTS’s album Proof and the associated collector’s edition. “There’s always points in your life where you look back and think, So that’s how I was in my 20s—in my 30s. Like when you lie down for bed and think about the day.” Lee’s words also get to the defining core of all the content related to the album, including the logo trailer and the exhibition: a retrospective of the music of BTS, a page-by-page record of their history and a look back on all their accomplishments from their own perspective. While the album is an anthology of BTS’s journey to date in music, 2022 BTS EXHIBITION: Proof expresses those accomplishments in physical form, beginning at HYBE INSIGHT in Seoul from September 28 and expanding to Busan as well as Tokyo, Japan. As such, previous album art and logos are presented as sculptures, objects from the “Yet To Come” music video are brought to life and the numerous tour posters and venues are shown in photos and videos. As you enter the exhibit space, you’re greeted by a show of “the robustness of BTS through bulletproof iron gates” and a lobby to match, according to Kang Eun Hwa and Kim Nahyung from the Culture Content Business Team. The second section, Continued Space, is covered in white cloth and bathed in bright light from the Door version of the concept photos for Proof—a drastic change in atmosphere. With words handwritten by the BTS members themselves, objects from the “Yet To Come” music video, various sculptures and music playing throughout each area, the entire exhibition was designed to explore ideas from the Proof album, shedding light on the concepts that guided background elements and realizing the message of the album in a physical space.

The History Photo Tower at the Seoul exhibition stands as a symbol of what the exhibition is aiming to convey. By filling a two-story, 7.5-meter tall wall with nothing but concept photos for BTS’s albums, the group’s journey to arrive at Proof is laid out in a Journey of Proof. According to Kang and Kim from the culture team, A Journey of Proof is the overarching theme of the exhibition and its direction, and the History Photo Tower is designed to “show the brilliance of BTS’s history at a glance.” Ironically, the photos themselves are so large that it’s impossible for viewers to take them in in passing, having the effect of giving the viewer the sensation of just how overwhelming BTS’s success over the past nine years of hard work has been. In the same way that the collector’s edition of the album allows listeners to feel the significance of the group’s accomplishments, the grandeur of the bulletproof iron gates and the sweeping photo tower gives viewers a sense of the true scale of their achievements. The fruit of the labors that led them to Proof are on display in areas such as the hallways where numerous dance practice videos are projected on either wall. Kang and Kim said the hall was “inspired by the concept of continuously recording cameras and was meant to look like footage capturing the endless efforts of BTS,” adding that they “installed the artwork in a narrow space to express how the group has also had to practice in unconventional and uncomfortable places.” To the observer, the boys grow and improve before their very eyes as the scale of their practice studio gradually grows in reflection of their growing popularity. The exhibition compresses BTS’s frenetic journey into a single space, emphasized by RM’s writing on the wall: “We really lived our 20s vigorously.”

Though Choi called Proof “a timely album that BTS needed to make in order to finish one chapter and move onto the next one,” there’s more to it than that. The intention was actually to “show the next chapter of BTS with the tracks selected by the members filling the second CD showing their individual tastes and with the sincerity of the interviews in the collector’s edition.” Similarly, in the video for “Yet To Come,” the members of BTS take a relaxed look at symbols from their years together as a group recontextualized into the present. They also sing that the “best moment is yet to come,” which can be interpreted as an expression of their love for their past and their drive to keep moving forward. Adding to this concept of moving forward after Proof is a hallway in the middle of the exhibition showing short videos of the members holding bullets in their hands. According to the culture team representatives, “the bullets symbolize the prejudices and difficulties they have fought against to get this far,” and the fact that visitors will themselves be walking forward in the hallway is a spatial representation of how that which is yet to come—the “unknown and the new”—is “paradoxically dark.” The whole area is intended to convey the idea that “the members of BTS brighten the dark path.” Visitors to the exhibition are able to look back at where BTS came from and look forward together into the future. Lee explained that the album and the exhibition are intrinsically linked and that this darkened hallway exemplifies how “the exhibition was designed to allow people to experience the Proof album directly and make it that much more complete.”

The most important part of the exhibition is BTS’s fandom, ARMY. Light breaks through the darkness of every area of the exhibition, be it the green lasers bouncing around the lobby or the light coming through the open spaces of the dark Tunnel of Light. According to Kang and Kim, this was used as a metaphor for what ARMY and BTS have created between them and “the influence they’ve had on each other.” Even the smallest amount of light breaking through can turn a cold, dark space bright and comfortable in the same way that a lyric from a song entering your everyday life can be a small boost to your mood or go on to have even greater power and change someone’s life. As the culture team aimed to “show that the small amounts of light gathered together to become a whole,” the exhibition frequently uses this light motif. Visual elements of the exhibition’s underlying theme play on motifs related to light and space, including a picture frame visitors can remove from the wall, a colorful light box that recreates the Proof logo and a panoramic view of BTS’s stadium tour spread over multiple pieces of cloth. The theme can also be seen in the installation that features several of BTS’s official light sticks, ARMY BOMB, on a large wall as their lights change in time to “Boy With Luv” featuring Halsey. The installation was “created using a series of an old version of ARMY BOMB” and “the same technique that was used in lieu of the audience that couldn’t attend the group’s first online concert, BANG BANG CON, during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020,” the culture team explained. The exhibition brings this moment back to life in sweeping waves of light as the brightest possible reminder of everything ARMY has done for the group.

Choi said there were “many events when Proof was released and promoted to encourage fans to get involved as a reminder that everyone, and especially the fans, are a part of it.” The intent was to show how ARMY has been with BTS all through their Journey of Proof, and the same message and approach is found all through the exhibition. For example, there’s one rounded space in the exhibit where the BTS logo and the ARMY logo are set up facing one another, visualizing how, though there may be physical distance between the groups at times, they’re always connected, and so “sometimes on the winding road of life, BTS and ARMY will guide one another,” in Kang and Kim’s words. Visitors can also walk directly between the opposing logos, each depicting a set of doors, making it the most multi-dimensional experience of the entire exhibition. The area where things from the “Yet To Come” music video are laid out for all to see has a similar feel, with tree, train, shipping container, a merry-go-round, piano, rose and statue all on display. Items featured throughout BTS videos past come to life, allowing ARMY to walk right in BTS’s footsteps. Fans who tour the exhibition will easily recall moments from BTS history as they see each object up close and personal, as well as where they were in life when they first saw them. It’s this sort of idea that led Choi to choose “I was here” as the defining sentence of the meaning behind Proof. ARMY has always been an integral part of BTS, and now they can step into that history again thanks to the exhibition space. The whole experience reproduces every moment along the way that ARMY has been with BTS, bringing the Proof exhibition to its climax.

RM closed out the group’s concert in Los Angeles last year by saying, “We are the bullet and you guys were our proof, so we’re now truly bulletproof.” Those brief words were the most important impetus behind developing the meaning of BTS’s anthology album, according to BIGHIT MUSIC. BTS is both the bullet and the proof and ARMY has been a part of their history from day one. With their Journey of Proof now available to be revisited thanks to the exhibition, the starting line for a new journey of proof is just being drawn.

Note: The descriptions in this article are based on the Seoul exhibition and exhibitions in other regions may differ.