Museum MACAN Celebrates THE 5TH VH AWARD: A Showcase of Emerging Media Artists
Museum MACAN is honored to present the works of THE 5TH VH AWARD finalists in Indonesia from the 29th of February to the 21st of April 2024. The presentation will feature all finalists, including the Grand Prix recipient from Dharan Subash Thebe Limbu; Guiyang-based artist Zike He; artist and filmmaker from Bandung Riar Rizaldi; Taipei-based artist Su Hui-Yu; and New York-based art and research collective zzyw. This is part of the global exhibition program for THE VH AWARD organized by Hyundai Motor Group.
Established in 2016, VH AWARD discovers and supports emerging media artists by sharing their artistic experiments and showcasing their artworks across global platforms. The VH AWARD was initiated to activate the intersection of art and technology through cross-cultural research and interdisciplinary artistic expressions. Announced in September 2022, five shortlisted artists were each awarded grants to produce new artworks. The finalists also received the opportunity to participate in an online residency program hosted by Eyebeam, the preeminent New York City-based art and technology center. The artists participated in professional development sessions and regular mentorship meetings with globally renowned art experts such as Barbara London and Magdalena Magiera, as well as artists Jon Ippolito, Clarinda Mac Low, Kamau Amu Patton, Taeyoon Choi and Marton Robinson.
A Yakhtung (Limbu) artist from eastern Nepal, Subash Thebe Limbu won THE 5TH VH AWARD with his work titled Ladhamba Tayen; Future Continuous. In his work, Limbu imagines futures where Indigenous people’s actions and existence is in the space-time continuum. Through the conversation between two indigenous people from very different timelines, the Yakthung artist asks the viewers to investigate their own potential role in searching for the possible futures to strive for, while reflecting the struggle against colonialism and overcoming obstacles.
"This work plays with the idea of time as not something rigid but ductile or weavable, which in turn paves the way for questions like how we might want to weave the future."
“THE 5TH VH AWARD celebrates the diversity and creativity of media artists around the world who engage with the context of Asia and the future,” said DooEun Choi, Art Director of Hyundai Motor. “These emerging artists have broadened our perspectives on the future of humanity and enabled us to blur any boundaries through their distinctive cross-cultural practices.”
This is the second time that the Museum MACAN supports this global exhibition program of the VH AWARD. Museum MACAN is proud to support Hyundai Motor Group’s commitment to provide opportunities for the finalists to present their works at renowned art institutions, to share the diversity and creativity of Asian new media artists with audiences around the world. Museum MACAN’s former Director, Aaron Seeto joined as a jury member to evaluate the VH AWARD recipients’ works together with Sook-Kyung Lee, Director of The Whitworth, University of Manchester; Yukiko Shikata, Curator and Critic based in Tokyo; Martin Honzik, Chief Curatorial Officer of Ars Electronica Linz; Roderick Schrock, Curator and Executive Director of Eyebeam.
The exhibition at Museum MACAN is part of a series of worldwide presentations of the finalists’, which are currently on view at Elektra Visual Museum in Montreal, and presented at HMG Vision Hall in Yongin, South Korea, Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria, and Objectifs, a visual art center in Singapore.
