YoungEun Kim Wins the 2026 ACC Future Prize
The Seoul‑born artist has been recognised for her sound‑based works that renegotiate practices of listening in history and contemporary art. Save to My Ocula
The National Asian Culture Center (ACC) is pleased to announce that artist YoungEun Kim has been awarded the 2026 ACC Future Prize. Established by the ACC, the ACC Future Prize is a strategic support initiative designed to nurture innovative and interdisciplinary artistic practices that envisage future societal values and potential.
Born in 1980, Seoul, YoungEun Kim critically examines complex social and historical narratives through sound and auditory archives, revealing suppressed histories of modernisation, militarism, and migration.
The judging committee emphasised Kim’s innovative approach: ‘She reconstructs speeches and writings produced in diaspora, migration, and border contexts through recitation and reading, transforming listening into a reflective act. Her project poses essential questions: “What have we failed to hear? And how should we ethically confront that which remains unheard?” This initiative reinterprets colonisation, history, and memory through sound art and aims to foster new meditative practices of listening in contemporary art.’
‘YoungEun Kim’s work awakens us to lost voices and unrecorded histories,’ the ACC said. ‘Her efforts to broaden the scope of contemporary Asian art and to contribute to future creative discourse are highly commendable.’
The ACC will support the production of Kim’s new works for a major solo exhibition from August 2026 to January 2027 at the 1,560m2 ACC Creation Space 1.
Main image: Portrait of YoungEun Kim, recipient of the 2026 ACC Future Prize. Photo: Lee Yun-ho © National Asian Culture Center
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