Hyundai Motor Group announced five shortlisted artists for the 5th VH AWARD on 1 September, 2022. Established in 2016, the VH AWARD is one of Asia's leading awards for new media artists and it supports the discovery and exhibition of emerging media artists who converge art with technology and engage with the context of Asia and its future.
Applicants for the fifth edition of the award submitted a proposal to produce audiovisual screen based works that may include, but are not limited to, video art, moving image, film, motion graphics, computer animation, gaming and more. Applications could be submitted by an individual, team or collective and were accepted from all over the world, including artists with a connection to Asia who were based outside of Asia. The extension of its eligibility cemented the VH AWARD as one of the most important opportunities for emerging media artists in the region and received a tremendous response.
The five shortlisted artists for the 5th VH AWARD have been selected from 148 outstanding applications and their artworks will continue to be reviewed for the final round by the jury which includes Martin Honzik (Chief Curatorial Officer of Ars Electronica and Managing Director of Ars Electronica Festival, Prix, and Exhibitions); Sook-Kyung Lee (Senior Curator, International Art (Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational) of Tate Modern); Roderick Schrock (Curator, Executive Director of Eyebeam); Aaron Seeto (Director of Museum MACAN); and Yukiko Shikata (independent curator and art critic). In alphabetical order, the five shortlisted artists are Zike He, Subash Thebe Limbu, Riar Rizaldi, Su Hui-Yu, and zzyw (Yang Wang and Zhenzhen Qi).
“We are ecstatic to see the 5th VH AWARD take its place as one of the preeminent awards for Asian artists whose works utilize art and technology to explore and challenge Asia's complex social, political, and cultural issues,”said DooEun Choi, Art Director of Hyundai Motor. “We hope that the VH AWARD will continue to provide a platform for Asia's voices to be heard around the world, so that the future will be more inclusive and diverse.”
"The level of diversity displayed by the applicants this year was very impressive overall. It was fascinating to observe the ways in which applicants connect the past to the future and also question the meaning of humanity after going through the common crisis. We would also like to extend our gratitude to the nominators, who were instrumental in assisting us in developing such outstanding and varied applications," said the jury in a joint statement.
For the first time, this year, the VH AWARD has invited a group of influential artists and curators from different regions in Asia to recommend screen-based media artists for the award. The invited nominators were Artistic Director for the 2021 Sea Art Festival Ritika Biswas, Director of the NTU ADM Gallery Michelle Ho, international media art curator, writer, producer and educator Joel Kwong, independent curator Iris Long, Curator of the National Art Gallery Tan Hui Koon, Senior Curator of Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab Dar-Kuen Wu, Director and Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Joselina Cruz, artist and curator Rizki Lazuardi, art researcher and curator Do Tuong Linh, curator and researcher Xin Bi, media artist and Professor at Seoul National University JE BAAK, curator and researcher Manuporn Luengaram, and editor Miki Fukuda.
The five shortlisted artists, teams or collectives will each receive a grant of 25,000 USD for the production of new artworks. Before the submission of their final works, the finalists will participate in an online residency program from October to December 2022 with EYEBEAM, the prominent not-for-profit art and technology center based in New York City. The online residency program includes two professional development sessions, one meeting with the jury, six mentoring sessions with globally renowned art experts including networked artists and curators. The finalists will present their works through various online and offline global platforms.
The Grand Prix recipient will be announced during an award ceremony in May 2023 and receive an additional grant of 25,000 USD. More information on the 5th VH AWARD and the award ceremony will be announced on VH AWARD website (vhward.com) in due course.
Brief introduction to the five shortlisted artists
Zike He (b. 1990) is a media artist. Her works focus on personal and temporal perception in the flow of information and the technology milieu. By working on specific databases, archives and memory, her recent projects are developed with research ranging from digital space and machine learning to infrastructure and deep time, and with the exploration of their shapes in daily life. On the edges of different frames, narrative approach and discussions on “Disorder”often take the central place. In 2021, she started visiting, researching and focusing on art projects that explore science and technology infrastructure in the mountainous region of Guizhou in southwest China. Most of her works take the form of video, writing, installation, and computer programs.
Riar Rizaldi (b. 1990) works as an artist and filmmaker. His artistic practice mostly focuses on the relationship between capital and technology, worldview, and the possibility of theoretical fiction. His works have been shown at various international film festivals (including Locarno, IFFR, Viennale, BFI London, Cinema du Reel, Vancouver, and more) as well as NTT Inter Communication Center Tokyo, Centre Pompidou Paris, Times Museum Guangzhou, Istanbul Biennial, Biennale Jogja, and National Gallery of Indonesia amongst others.
Su Hui-Yu (b. 1976) obtained an MFA from Taipei National University of the Arts in 2003. His works are about exploring the connection between mass media, pop culture, memories of martial law, and the post-colonial history of Taiwan and East Asia. His work has been exhibited at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Hong-Gah Museum, Jut Art Museum, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Museo Jumex in Mexico City, Casino Luxembourg, Kunstmuseum Bonn, San Jose Museum of Art in California, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, and Power Station of Art in Shanghai. In 2017, International Film Festival Rotterdam dedicated a retrospective to Su’s video works, while his video work Super Taboo had its world premiere in the Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films. Su returned to the Tiger Short Competition in 2019 with The Glamorous Boys of Tang. In 2019, Su won the 17th Taishin Arts Award-Visual Art Award. Additionally, one of his latest productions Future Shock was awarded by Kaohsiung Short Award and premiered in Art Wuzhen in mainland China.
Subash Thebe Limbu (b.1981) is a Yakthung (Limbu) artist from eastern Nepal. He works with sound, film, music, performance, painting and podcast. Subash has MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins (2016), BA in Fine Art from Middlesex University (2011), and Intermediate in Fine Art from Lalit Kala Campus, Kathmandu. His works are inspired by socio-political issues, resistance and science/speculative fiction. Migration, climate change, and indigeneity or Adivasi Futurism as he calls it, are recurring themes in his works.
zzyw (founded in 2017) zzyw is an art and research collective formed by Yang Wang and Zhenzhen Qi in New York in 2017. It produces software applications, simulations, and text as instruments to examine the cultural, political, and educational imprints of computation.
Yang Wang (b.1989) is an independent designer, a media artist, and a software engineer. Throughout Wang’s practice, computation is a tool for art-making and the subject of study. His work utilizes simulation to recreate conditions for critical examination. Besides his independent art and research practice, he is an alum of New Museum-led art & tech incubator NEW INC for the year 2019 to 2020, and an alum of the Technology Residency at the New York-based art institution Pioneer Works. He was the former Technical Director of Shanghai-based new media art agency OUTPUT Lab, a former Senior Creative Technologist at New York-based architectural design firm Rockwell Group and the former Interaction Designer at New York-based interaction design firm Potion.
Zhenzhen Qi (b.1983) is an educator, researcher, and technologist from mainland China, currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Since 2014, she has taught courses on interactive media, web, and game development at New York University, Teachers College, Columbia University, City University of New York (CUNY), and Guangzhou Academy of Art (GAFA) as an adjunct professor. She has given talks and led workshops at Power Station of Art, New Museum, New York Creative Tech Week, Museum 2050, Asia Art Archive in America, and more. She is the recipient of the Creative Technology Fellowship and Macy Fellowship at Columbia University. Additionally, she was a member of NEW INC, a culture and technology incubator at the New Museum in New York.
Courtesy Hyundai Motor Group and VH AWARD.
