At the 4th Seoul Arts Awards, hosted by the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, the grand prize was awarded to the work “Leakage” by Chumpan Yamoo. The award ceremony took place at the KBS Hall in Yeouido, Seoul, on the 5th, and “Leakage” was selected as the grand prize winner after competing against the best works from various genres such as theater, music, tradition, visual, and multidisciplinary arts. The grand prize included a total prize money of 20 million won.
The judging panel commented that “Leakage” received the highest evaluation for its contemporaneity, discursive expansiveness, and artistic direction, describing it as a monumental work that reveals the unseen through the relationship of body, object, and space, and proposes a direction for dance to take.
“Leakage” expands the everyday phenomenon of “water leaking” into a contemporary awareness of issues such as poverty, burnout, and the wealth gap. It symbolically highlights social realities by combining everyday objects like paper cups, wallpaper, and tape with the dancers’ bodies.
Chumpan Yamoo expressed their gratitude, stating, “Telling stories through ‘bodies’ brought us to this moment,” and pledged to continue creating impactful art through dance.
The Seoul Arts Awards presented a variety of contemporary Seoul’s representative art pieces before a diverse audience of over 1,300, including artists and general spectators. A gala performance featured nine award-winning works, including Ambiguous Dance Company’s “Body Concert.”
This year saw the introduction of the “Spark Focus Award,” which highlights outstanding works presented independently without public support, and the “Special Contribution Award,” which honors the dedication of artists who have long maintained the pure art scene. Theater actor Park Jeong-ja received the “Special Contribution Award.”
Porsche Korea, marking its third year as a sponsor of the Seoul Arts Awards, supports the “Porsche Frontier Award,” granting 10 million won per genre and supporting the re-presentation of one of the award-winning works. Among the six winning works of the “Porsche Frontier Award,” the visual arts genre work “Cave that Appears When Burned” by Kim Se-eun was selected for re-presentation support. This exhibition explores the expansion potential of media by merging painting with installations and space, and it will be re-presented within the year with a total support of 20 million won.
Song Hyeong-jong, CEO of the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, remarked, “The award-winning works of the Seoul Arts Awards are the essence of the intense dedication and passion of artists over the past year,” and pledged continued support so that today’s works can represent not only Seoul but also Korea. More information on the award-winning works can be found on the Seoul Arts Awards website.