The 6th VH AWARD, organized by Hyundai Motor Group, premiered five newly commissioned artworks in a screening exhibition at HEK (House of Electronic Arts), Basel, along with a panel discussion among its finalists.
Chinese artist Wendi Yan received the Grand Prix for Dream of Walnut Palaces (2025), a CGI video that probes the psyche of a fictional Daoist in an 18th-century Paris lab to propose an alternative to techno-Orientalism.
Yan’s work was selected by a jury of Christl Baur, head of Ars Electronica Festival; Sabine Himmelsbach, director of HEK; Martin Honzik, curator and artist; Sook-Kyung Lee, director of The Whitworth; and Roderick Schrock, curator and former executive director of Eyebeam.
HUDA x MUNGOMERY, Within Tirta, 2025. Installation view, HEK, Basel, 2025, with, from left to right: Tianyi Sun, Fiel Guhit, Inhwa Yeom, Lêna Bùi, Sabine Himmelsbach, Wendi Yan, Dani Huda, and Charlotte Mungomery
Four other finalists were awarded with grants for the production of new work. Lêna Bùi’s dream(machine, human) presents a non-linear narrative alternately legible as human memories salvaged by machines or a mythology of human demise and metamorphosis. Duo HUDA x MUNGOMERY’s Within Tirta asks what we must sacrifice to sustain nature through the folkloric Indonesian (Sasak) princess Mandalika. Tianyi Sun & Fiel Guhit’s 40 Epochs dwells on the spiritual displacement and unseen labor at the heart of human-like vocal technologies. And Inhwa Yeom’s War Dance draws on celestial phenomena and Korean myth to unsettle “natural” structures that oppress Asian women.
Lêna Bùi, still from dream(machine, human), 2025, single-channel video, 10 min.
Tianyi Sun & Fiel Guhit, still from 40 Epochs, 2025, single-channel video, 10 min.
Inhwa Yeom, still from War Dance, 2025, single-channel video, 8 min.
The exhibition continued at the Vision Hall of Hyundai Motor Group University, Mabuk Campus in Yongin, South Korea and Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing, China. Screening events and public programs will follow in September at the Ars Electronica Festival, Linz and during Singapore Art Week 2026, in collaboration with the National Arts Council Singapore.
Initiated in 2016, the VH AWARD has become Asia’s leading award for emerging media artists. Finalists to its open call are welcomed into an online residency program and receive $25,000 to produce an artwork for exhibition; its Grand Prix winner is awarded an additional $25,000.
The 7th VH AWARD will launch an open call in the first half of 2026.
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The 6th VH AWARD
HEK, Basel
16–22 Jun 2025
“Panic”
Ars Electronica Festival, Linz
3–7 Sep 2025
Singapore Art Week
22–31 Jan 2026