Hyundai Motor Company today announced new partner institutions for the Hyundai Translocal Series, an initiative that fosters cross-regional artistic collaborations between art institutions in Korea and across the globe.
 
The newly established exchanges will bring together the Ulsan Art Museum (Ulsan, Korea) and the New Museum (New York, USA), as well as the Seo-Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul, Korea) and the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (Abu Dhabi, UAE).
 
The Hyundai Translocal Series is a partnership initiative designed to foster sustainable collaboration among art institutions across Korea and abroad. It supports the entire process of exchange—from collaborative research and new commissions to exhibitions, public programs, and publications.
 
Through this platform, participating institutions explore translocal themes that resonate across global contexts while remaining grounded in their respective cultural environments, generating new forms of artistic discourse through dialogue and exchange.

How will the Ulsan Art Museum and the New Museum collaborate?
 
The Ulsan Art Museum and the New Museum will explore the convergence of art and technology by engaging Ulsan and New York as distinct yet interconnected sites, examining how shared values emerge across different local contexts and intersect with broader global currents.
 
· Ulsan Art Museum: Guided by experimentation and creativity, the museum engages the past, interrogates the present, and looks toward the future through research and programming centered on digital media and technology—cultivating a space for participation and shared experience.
 
· New Museum: Founded in 1977 and recently expanded, the museum has long served as a center for new art and new ideas by artists from around the world, advancing experimental practices.
 
Over the next three years, the two institutions will collaboratively develop three annual exhibitions, presenting site-specific works at the Ulsan Art Museum's XR Lab, an experimental space dedicated to media art, and on the New Museum's elevator screens in its newly expanded building.

The first annual exhibition will take shape through newly commissioned works by Ho Tzu Nyen, whose practice traverses temporal and spatial boundaries in its engagement with Asian modernity. The works will be presented at the New Museum from September 24 and at the Ulsan Art Museum from October 22.
 
“We are delighted to participate in the Hyundai Translocal Series, which allows us to transcend physical distances, share the unique cultural and environmental fabrics of our two great cities, and collectively explore the push and pull of the global and the local in contemporary art.
 
This collaboration will serve as a bridge that connects our cities and their respective art communities, resulting in new works of art that offer audiences a transformative experience of a multilayered reality that connects us all beyond a single location.” – Changsub Lim, Director of the Ulsan Art Museum, and Regan Grusy, Acting Director of the New Museum.

How will the Seo-Seoul Museum of Art and the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation collaborate?
 
The Seo-Seoul Museum of Art and the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation will undertake a multi-year collaboration, critically exploring today’s technological environment, including artificial intelligence, and raising translocal questions by situating technologies within the historical, infrastructural, and social conditions that shape them.
 
· Seo-Seoul Museum of Art: Opened in March 2026, the museum is dedicated to new media art, advancing critical discourse and experimental practices through exhibitions and research focused on emerging artistic media and languages.
 
· Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation: For nearly three decades, the foundation has championed bold artistic practices and fostered cross-cultural dialogue through its commitment to artists, creative expression, and broad public engagement, while strengthening Abu Dhabi’s role in global artistic exchange.

The two institutions will invite four artists or collectives exploring contemporary technologies including artificial intelligence to participate in an interdisciplinary residency program developed in collaboration with Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI).
 
Bringing participating artists into dialogue with the university’s research community, this collaboration will support exploration of practices that address translocal questions around ecological, social, and cultural contexts shaping the present. Newly commissioned works developed as part of the program will be presented in Abu Dhabi in 2027 and in Seoul in 2028.
 
“The collaboration for the Hyundai Translocal Series is of great significance as a platform for cultural dialogue and as a global initiative. It stimulates artistic innovation and knowledge-based research at the intersection of the arts and artificial intelligence, while supporting cross-border collaborative projects.
 
As an experimental space where art, technology, and society converge, this initiative enables us to support artists in engaging with advanced AI technologies, while continuing to expand the project’s network to explore future artistic environments and create new opportunities.” – Eunju Choi, Director of Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), and Her Excellency Huda Alkhamis-Kanoo, Founder of Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF).

Launched in 2025, the Hyundai Translocal Series began with the inaugural exhibition, 《Hyundai Translocal Series: Entangled and Woven》, in collaboration with the Cheongju Craft Biennial 2025, the Whitworth, The University of Manchester, and the National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy, with a forthcoming exhibition co-organized by the Nam June Paik Art Center and the Pinacoteca de São Paulo opening in November 2026.

References

• 현대자동차 보도자료 (Hyundai Motor Group Press Release)