Hyundai
About Hyundai Blue Prize+ 2025
The final awardees of the Hyundai Blue Prize+ 2025 are the curatorial teams Hyejin Park & Yoonyoung Park and Yifeng Wei & Penny Dan Xu.
Established as a laboratory for the evolving role of curators, Hyundai Blue Prize+ invites curators worldwide to explore pressing contemporary issues, in connection with the contexts of Asia. In July, Hyundai Blue Prize+ 2025 open call received over 160 exhibition proposals for Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing from around the world, from which five teams were shortlisted to participate in a curatorial program guided by an international jury panel. This included one-on-one mentorship sessions from the jury panel and an in-depth research trip to Beijing, supporting the development of a final exhibition proposal.
In November 2025, five shortlisted teams presented their final proposals to the jury panel. Following rigorous review, two curatorial teams were selected as the Hyundai Blue Prize+ 2025 awardees:
- Hyejin Park & Yoonyoung Park, curators based in Seoul, unpack AI through the constructive lens of the Capitalocene, examining its connections to broader economic and resource systems. Their proposal traces AI’s dependence on natural resources and various forms of labor, as well as the process by which emotions and identities are utilized as new forms of capital. Through this perspective, they challenge audiences to reflect on everyday choices and envision new ways of coexisting with technology.
- Yifeng Wei & Penny Dan Xu, curators based in Dublin and London respectively, explore the dissolving boundaries between technology, science, and spirituality. Their proposal reimagines modern technology beyond a conventional framework and speculates on alternative futures, inviting audiences to perceive technologies as an alchemical medium. It asks whether empirical inquiry can merge with spiritual imagination to shape new cosmologies for the technological era.
“The final awardees of Hyundai Blue Prize+ 2025 both offer fresh perspectives on contemporary technologies, distinguished by cultural urgency and a thoughtful translation of their ideas into the gallery space. Each proposal successfully brings together a convincing selection of works that perfectly capture the exhibition concept.”
“In Hyejin Park & Yoonyoung Park’s timely exhibition proposal, we are taken behind the scenes and under the surface of machine learning, digital technologies and AI. In a carefully choreographed and nuanced sequence of works, we are asked to reflect upon the true impact of these supposedly wondrous new technologies. Furthermore, the curators ask us to consider ‘what choices should we make when we relate to these technologies, and what forms of coexistence can we create?’”
“From the primordial to the digital, and between the empirical and the spiritual, Yifeng Wei & Penny Dan Xu’s exhibition proposal brings together a group of poetic, often thought-provoking works. The curatorial selection and design effectively convey the exhibition concept through visually striking works and a multisensorial experience, further enhanced by accompanying programs designed to engage a wide range of audiences.”
- Hyundai Blue Prize+ 2025 jury panel.
Hyundai Blue Prize+ 2025 was led by a jury panel comprised of: Jochen Eisenbrand, Chief Curator, Vitra Design Museum (Weil am Rhein); Carol K. Huh, Associate Curator of Contemporary Asian Art, National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.); Frances Morris, former Director of Tate Modern (London) and Distinguished Visiting Professor, Ewha Womans University (Seoul); Christiane Paul, Curator of Digital Art, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York); and Philip Tinari, Director, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing). Their collective expertise and dedication not only ensured a rigorous evaluation process but also provided significant mentorship support, culminating in the recognition of the final awardees whose works exemplify innovation and experimentation.
The final awardees will present their exhibitions at Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing, scheduled for mid-2026 and early 2027. Each team will receive up to 800,000 RMB (approximately USD 110,000) for exhibition production and implementation, with additional support for on-site operations and communications.
For more information and updates about Hyundai Blue Prize+ 2025, please visit the official Hyundai Blue Prize+ website website .
About the 2025 Awardees
Hyejin Park & Yoonyoung Park
Hyejin Park is a curator based in Seoul, South Korea. Park received a master’s degree in Modern Art & the History of the Art Market from Christie’s Education, NY and a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from Seoul National University. Her work interrogates cultural influence across regions and tests curatorial formats within contemporary visual culture. Park held the 2022 curatorial fellowship at the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony at the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig. There, she organized Meehye Lee’s solo exhibition I Do What You Do What They Do (2022), examining behavioral and aesthetic shifts shaped by social media. Park’s projects include co-curated exhibitions, Humor Has It (2021) and New Gameplay (2016) at the Nam June Paik Art Center, and two curated exhibitions at the Coreana Museum of Art: Youth Before Age (2019) on aging and ageism, and Hidden Workers (2018) on the persistence of undervalued women’s labor.
Yoonyoung Park is a curator based in Seoul, South Korea. She received a master’s degree in Art History from Hongik University and a bachelor’s degree in History from Sogang University. In recognition of the excellence of her master's thesis, she was awarded a research scholarship from the Pony Chung Foundation, established in honor of Chairman Se-yung Chung. Park is interested in how historical events, materials, and records move beyond mere preservation to be reread, transformed, and reinterpreted within contemporary artistic practices. She also focuses on the role of art in contemporary society and the distinct aesthetic sensibilities that emerge uniquely through artistic practice. At the Seoul Museum of Art, Park served as a coordinator in the Exhibition & Education Division, contributing to major curated exhibitions, including Scoring the Words (2022), The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (2023), and Planet Nine (2024). She also supported the international symposium Nam June Paik, Megatron, and Seoul Rhapsody (2023) and was involved in research, including Sung Hwan Kim Solo Exhibition: Ua a‘o ‘ia ‘o ia e ia (2024) and Myonghi Kang – Visit (2025). She currently works as a Curatorial Assistant in the Exhibition Division at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, South Korea.
Yifeng Wei & Penny Dan Xu
Yifeng Wei is a curator, researcher, and PhD candidate in Visual Culture at the National College of Art and Design, Ireland. His research engages with the aesthetics of opacity as a critical framework for resistance against digital colonization and technological oppression. His curatorial and publishing projects—often involving critical writing and performative lectures—have been presented internationally at the NCAD Gallery (Ireland), The LAB Gallery (Ireland), LUX Pavilion (Germany), Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania), the University of Cambridge (UK), and Arizona State University (USA).
Dr. Penny Dan Xu is a London-based independent curator with 13 years of experience. She holds a PhD in Art History and is the founder of Across Platform, a nonprofit research initiative. She also serves as an advisor to the art organization Baopu FELT. Her practice centers on collaborative research in the contemporary art field and beyond, with a commitment to slow thinking, cross-cultural dialogue, and independent knowledge production.
About the Program
Hyundai Blue Prize+
The Hyundai Blue Prize+ is an open call program, inviting emerging curators worldwide to explore the most pressing contemporary issues, in connection with the contexts of Asia, by pursuing boundless perspectives. Initiated in 2017 by Hyundai Motor, Hyundai Blue Prize has previously supported emerging curators through Hyundai Blue Prize Art + Tech in China and Hyundai Blue Prize Design in Korea. In 2025, the initiative has evolved into Hyundai Blue Prize+, expanding its scope to transcend boundaries, cultivate interdisciplinary research, and foster transcultural conversations.
