BBA Artist Prize 2020

Hansol Kim is a clothing collector, consumer and maker. For him, wearing clothes every day is like being a part of an art project because he must consider many different visual factors, such as the colour combination and texture of each clothing item. He gains an understanding of himself and who he is through seeing, choosing and wearing clothes. His daily dressing rituals nourish his art practice through tested visual strategies, intuitive editing and personal representation. Most of his works stem from a very personal fascination with and his eccentric approach to certain objects, but he strongly believes that he is also one of the reflections of our contemporary society and that people could empathise with his ideas. His key aim is to try to achieve new relationships between humans, clothing and spaces by juxtaposing existing forms, functions, materials, and aesthetics and their historical and anthropological references.

Ruini Shi is an animation director based in London. She explores virtual intimacy by combining film language and technological aesthetics, creating narratives that interrogate the compatibility between humanity and emerging technologies. Her first film Strings won the Award of Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica 2019. Shi’s graduation film Desire Line has been selected for numerous festivals worldwide including recent screenings at Transmediale, Royal Television Society Award, Animafest Zagreb, Lumen Prize Award. In addition to personal work, she collaborates commercial clients including Nike, Gorillaz x Gshock and Visit Britain. She was nominated for the 2019 Rapoport Award for Women in Art and Technology.

Her work is routed in conceptual art, taking the form of photographic series, film, video and installations that explore contemporary culture through a loose narrative structure. Her projects result in site specific installations. Her studio practice involves research and testing that she uses when creating her installations often times developing pieces that all come together as a whole when installed. Recently her work has focused on multi-channel video/sound installations, thematically exploring identity and individuality. The works “You Can Not Be Replaced” , “The Real Brian Wilson”, “The Symphony of Names : No Man Is an Island” present a portrait of a person, a group of people or a specific culture. The installations often use music as a thematic backbone and integrate sound as a central element. She is interested in leaving the viewer with questions relating to uniqueness while planting seeds about ones place in the universe. The installations provide an immersive, layered experience for the viewer where their attention can shift around the space. In her work she explores similar things, like names, people and experiences. The projects look at what the similarities and differences are and ask the viewer to think about the identity of the subject.

Kim moves beyond portraiture to explore new and more complex ideas about the ways in which we interact with the internet. Taking inspiration from the bombardment of images and news articles that we are faced with every day, Kim creates collage-style paintings of stacked disparate elements, combined in a single canvas. The paintings are a visual representation of the fragmented pieces of photos and articles that remain in Kim’s mind after browsing the internet, blended with her own memories and thoughts to create a composition that contains both elements of truth and fiction. Through the filter of our own minds, which are presented with endless information every day, stories become distorted and altered. Kim’s work seeks to visually represent this distortion.

Ming Lu’s works include photography, installation, performance, and more traditional media – porcelain and embroidery. Her recent works play on the tension between contemporary art and traditional Chinese craftsmanship. Humorously employing symbols and figures from myths, legends, prehistorical culture, and from her own biography alike, Ming Lu’s works reflect her cultural identity, which combines enduring attachments to China, the country of her birth and to Europe, where she studied art. Another focal point in Lu’s works is the femininity. While the artist’s embroideries feature a cast of female characters recreated from historical myths, the artists uses many ordinary objects in her sculptural works, such as cosmetics (notably lipstick and facial masks), lingerie, hair extensions, and transforms them into anthropomorphic playful representations of the female body and the female experience. This metaphorical and deadpan use of everyday objects to speak of important issues is a typical approach of the artist, her works often veer between abstraction and literalness; between the familiar and the uncanny; between absurdity and gravity.