Korean Artist Aram Lee (b. 1986) has been named the grand prize winner of the 25th SONGEUN Art Award, operated by SONGEUN Art and Cultural Foundation.
 
Established in 2001, the SONGEUN Art Award is an annual initiative aimed at discovering and supporting talented contemporary Korean artists. From 556 applications, 20 finalists were selected through a rigorous preliminary review and presented newly commissioned works in 《The 25th SONGEUN Art Award Exhibition》, where Aram Lee was ultimately chosen as the award recipient.
 
Award recipient Aram Lee challenges Western mainstream histories through feminist materialism and decolonial perspectives. Working across performance, video, and installation, Lee reconfigures materials found within Western institutional contexts to reveal marginalized and peripheral narratives, and to critically reflect on subversive cultural structures.

The video Every Worm Trampled Is a Star (2025), presented at 《The 25th SONGEUN Art Award Exhibition》, explores the possibility of recovering a “diaspora of the land” by summoning the land’s autobiographical voice in the process of territorial return.
 
Tracing the history of the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul—which has remained cut off from civilian life for the past 138 years as a Japanese military training ground and later a U.S. military base—the work follows the memories of land displaced and externalized through colonization, occupation, and prolonged military enclosure.

If the diaspora of people entails physical movement across space, the diaspora of land described in this work refers to the displacement of memory and the severance of sensory connection. On land that itself does not move, successive overlays of sovereignty and institutional power, along with shifting borders and languages, have produced ongoing forms of loss.
 
The video recalls fragments of memory pushed to the margins and portrays a process in which the land re-narrates itself, articulated through the voice of a third-generation Zainichi Korean.

As the winner of the grand prize, Lee will receive a cash award of 20 million KRW and be granted a solo exhibition at SONGEUN within three years. Sponsored by the SONGEUN Art and Cultural Foundation and Cartier, two artworks of Lee will also be acquired for SONGEUN (1 piece) and Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) collection (1 piece). Lee will be granted the opportunity to attend the Nanji residency program for one year.
 
Continuing its mission to discover and nurture young artists, the SONGEUN Art and Cultural Foundation will hold the 26th SONGEUN Art Award this year. The preliminary application will be conducted online in February, with specific dates announced on the SONGEUN website and social media.
 
《The 25th SONGEUN Art Award Exhibition》, showcasing the works of the 20 finalists including Aram Lee, will run until February 14.

References

• 송은 보도자료 (SONGEUN Press Release)