Kimsooja has been named the 31st laureate of the Kim Se-Choong Sculpture Award. The artist, who represented the Korean pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, is internationally known for her Bottari series, inspired by the Korean bedcover cloth bundles. Bottari are associated in Korean culture with travel and migration and are considered part of the realm of domestic female activities.

“Kimsooja’s Bottari series uses Korean bottari to represent concepts in a universal visual language, such as nomadism, gender identity, communication, and atrophy and decay,” said the award’s judging committee. “Kim also worked with site-specific installations and performances that explore the relationship between time and space, life and death, and herself and the rest of society.”

Established in 1987, the Kim Se-Choong Sculpture Award is named in honor of Kim Se-Choong (1928–1986), one of the first generation of contemporary Korean sculptors. Notable past awardees include Ahn Kyuchul, Um Tai Jung, Park Suk-Won, and Kim Youngwon. This year’s judges are sculptor Choi Man Lin; Nanjie Yun, professor of Art History at Ehwa Womans University; Moon Joo, professor in the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University; art critic Kim Boggi; and Chun Young-paik professor of Fine Arts at Hongik University.

Hana Yun / Editor, theArtro