Dr YIYUN KANG FRSA

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BIO

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Yiyun Kang is a transdisciplinary artist and founder of Studio Yiyun Kang.  She creates large-scale, multisensory environments that turn invisible systems—AI, climate change, and social crisis—into embodied public experiences. Her practice is guided by a simple proposition: make the unfelt, felt. 

 

By translating complex information into spatial and emotional encounters, Kang moves audiences from information to feeling, and from feeling to collective agency. 

Her solo exhibitions and major projects have been presented internationally, including at the V&A, Venice Architecture Biennale, Grand Palais Immersif, Fondation Fiminco, and Art on theMART in Chicago. She has collaborated with NASA and Google Arts & Culture at the COP28 Blue Zone, and with Jaeger-LeCoultre on a global touring project. Her work is held in collections including the V&A and BTS.

 

Kang’s work extends beyond the exhibition space. Rather than treating technology as an instrument of seamless optimisation, she uses it to create contemplative friction: spaces that slow perception, sharpen attention, and make difficult conversations possible. In doing so, she asks how art can help us sense—and shape—the systems in which we already live.

 

For Kang, art is also a form of cultural diplomacy: a way to build shared language across disciplines, publics, and borders. She has spoken on the TED 2026 main stage, given evidence to the UK Parliament, and serves as a Civilian Member of the Public Diplomacy Committee at Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

 

This public impact is grounded in rigorous academic inquiry. Kang is Chair Professor at KAIST’s College of Engineering and Director of the Experience Design Lab. She holds a PhD from the Royal College of Art, where she previously lectured. Her research has been published through ACM SIGGRAPH, Leonardo (MIT Press), and Oxford University Press, and she serves as a reviewer for NeurIPS, Digital Creativity, and Leonardo.

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