LEE Hyewon

Profile

Born in Seoul in 1989. Lives and works in Seoul. Graduated with a MA in Aesthetics from Seoul National University in 2019. Admitted to the PhD in Asian Languages and Cultures (ALC) from the University of Michigan in 2026.
Lee is a curator, researcher, and publisher whose work examines the tensions between socially defined norms and their opposites. Her research spans techno-utopian modernism in East Asia, the grotesque, the legacy of Manchukuo, and Asian futurism.

Recent activities
2025 "People Buying Land in the DMZ," A-O-Y Seoul, Supported by the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture
2025 "Unexpected Interpolation and Nearest Neighbor Search," Incheon Art Platform, Incheon, Korea, Supported by the Incheon Foundation for Arts and Culture
2025 "From Recent Rumors and Old Traces," CHAMBER, Seoul, Supported by the Incheon Foundation for Arts and Culture and CHAMBER
2024 "On—boarding: Going to Space, Loving in Space," National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul
2024 "The Radiant City, Dark Rapture―Dystopic Images of the Modern City," SeMA Bunker, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Supported by the 2024 SeMA Emerging Artists & Curators Support Program

Awards
2026 Fulbright Graduate Student Program Scholarship, Fulbright Korea (KAEC), Seoul
2024 Selected Curator, 2024 SeMA Emerging Artists & Curators Support Program, Seoul Museum of Art

About works

Lee's practice operates at the intersection of curatorial research, translation, and publication, with a focus on how visual culture mediates historical memory, technological imaginaries, and geopolitical power. She investigates the ways in which images, particularly those produced under conditions of colonial modernity, construct and circulate visions of the future.
Her current research centers on the techno-utopian visual strategies of Manchukuo (1930s–40s), tracing how imperial Japan's projection of technological optimism shaped East Asian modernity and continues to inflect contemporary representations of Asian cities. By bringing together archival research, critical translation, and exhibition-making, she aims to reposition East Asian perspectives at the center of transpacific discourses on technology, coloniality, and the modern.