Ayoung Kim Receives Korea’s Inaugural Future Prize
By Camilla Alvarez-Chow
Portrait of AYOUNG KIM. Courtesy National Asian Cultural Center, Korea.
The National Asian Culture Center (ACC) in Gwangju, South Korea, has named Seoul-based multimedia artist Ayoung Kim as the inaugural winner of its new KRW 300 million (USD 210,000) Future Prize, dedicated to innovative multidisciplinary practices. The ACC, which is part of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, announced the inception of its biennial award on April 16. According to ACC president Kanghyun Lee, the prize “is designed to identify and celebrate creators and producers who exhibit exceptional originality and a penchant for experimentation in contemporary art.”
The selection process for the prize began in 2023 when the ACC gathered nominations of artists from over 20 domestic and international experts. A selection of four shortlisted artists were then reviewed to determine the final winner. In a press release, the judges stated that they chose Kim for her “distinctive approach, which skillfully weaves multi-layered visual elements into a complex and impactful narrative, finding it particularly compelling.”
Kim will use the prize money to create a commissioned work that will fully utilize ACC Creation Space 1, an expansive 1,560 square-meter exhibition venue in Gwangju city’s Dong District. By funding the integration of new digital technologies to forge innovative artistic works, the ACC aims to be a hub for producing and showcasing content that uniquely merges Asian cultures.
Kim’s multidisciplinary practice spans video, moving image, virtual reality, game simulation, sonic fiction, diagrams, and text, exploring themes such as bio- and geopolitics, mythology, memory, and technology. She has participated in numerous exhibitions, screenings, and performances, including a forthcoming exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as well as Hong Kong’s M+ Museum (2024), Seoul’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (2024), the Sharjah Biennial 15 (2023), the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz (2023), Taichung’s Asian Art Biennial (2021), Berlin International Film Festival (2020), and Paris’s Palais de Tokyo (2016), among others.
“ACC Future Prize: Ayoung Kim” will be presented at ACC Creation Space 1 in Gwangju from August 30, 2024 until February 16, 2025.
Camilla Alvarez-Chow is an editorial assistant at ArtAsiaPacific.
