Yoshitomo Nara presents prize in Hong Kong’s inaugural Art Future Awards, launched to give young Asian artists a leg-up

Hong Kong Baptist University co-founded the Art Future Awards for emerging artists, whose first staging had entries from over 70 art institutions across Asia

The awards are intended as a launch pad for young artists in a field so competitive it’s ‘like a football league’. Artist Yoshitomo Nara presented the top prize

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Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara (left) presents the first-prize trophy to Erina Yoshimura at the inaugural Art Future Awards – intended as a launch pad for the careers of young Asian artists. Photo: courtesy of Hong Kong Baptist University

Published: 1:15pm, 23 Dec 2023

Erina Yoshimura from Kyoto City University of Arts was the winner of the inaugural edition of Hong Kong’s Art Future Awards.

Her piece, titled There is our horizon, is a video of a live performance showing members of a community in Japan working together to move a long plastic tube filled with water down a mountain path.

The winning artwork highlights the challenge of the task on unpaved and uneven terrain that requires people to work collectively while understanding the others from their perspectives.

Coming in second were Xiong Zheng from Sichuan Conservatory of Music and Lau Jin-ki from Hong Kong Art School.

A scene from Erina Yoshimura’s “There is our horizon”. Photo: courtesy of Hong Kong Baptist University

Xiong’s installation, Wish of pebble, features rotating pebbles powered by electric motors, while Lau’s Chronicles of distortion is a stoneware and porcelain panel with overlapped photographs printed on it, distorting and deforming the images.