The 6th VH AWARD: Wendi Yan, Dream of Walnut Palaces
The 6th VH AWARD: Wendi Yan, Dream of Walnut Palaces
The 6th VH AWARD: Wendi Yan, Dream of Walnut Palaces
The 6th VH AWARD: Wendi Yan, Dream of Walnut Palaces
About the Video
Wendi Yan (born in 1999, Beijing) is an artist, technologist, and writer narrating metamorphoses of the scientific self. She examines the cosmological, linguistic, and physiological challenges in facing alien epistemic systems across time and crafts alternative fictions of science and its history through CGI films, games, and archival displays of sculptural objects. Dream of Walnut Palaces is a CGI film reimagining knowledge exchange between China and Europe in the 18th century. Exploring the psyche of a fictional Daoist in a Paris lab, it examines the East-West clash of epistemic visuality and envisions an alternative to techno-Orientalism: a harmonious union of knowledge integrating Daoist metaphysics. Using Unreal Engine, 3D modeling, and AI, Yan transmutes historical images and lost ideas, giving voice to ‘ghosts’ and ‘orphans’ of the Enlightenment.
Still Image: Wendi Yan, Dream of Walnut Palaces (2025)
About the Program
The VH AWARD supports emerging media artists who engage with the context of Asia through an online residency program and exhibitions of commissioned artworks across various global platforms. Initiated in 2016, the VH AWARD has been discovering and cultivating promising artists to share their artistic experiments and amplify their voices on diverse issues. The award encourages artists who push the boundaries of audiovisual artworks to reflect on how we understand ourselves and one another in relation to the past, present and future. To amplify and share their voices with broader communities, the artworks commissioned by the VH AWARD have been exhibited in partnership with various art institutions and platforms, including the Vision Hall of Hyundai Motor Group in Yongin, South Korea; the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria; the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara in Jakarta, Indonesia; the National Arts Council in Singapore; the House of Electronic Arts in Basel, Switzerland; and the Elektra Virtual Museum.