Korean American artist Anicka Yi is known for fusing technology and biology and making it an art form. She combines natural materials, such as bacteria, and intangible and ephemeral materials, such as scent, in an effort to capture and recreate nuanced human sensations and emotions. Fungi, machines, and algae are also commonly found in her films, sculptures and installations.

For her new exhibition at Leeum Museum, curated by Gina Lee, Yi seeks to engage with themes of ecology and cosmology, prompting viewers to expand their perspectives and understanding of our place in a broader, interconnected natural and planetary system.

The exhibition features a new video work, Each Branch of Coral Holds Up the Light of the Moon, which is the inaugural piece of new project, Emptiness. In Emptiness, an algorithm functions as her studio and “digital twin”, based on artwork data the artist fed it. Yi’s investigation of relationships between human and non human “life” forms continues in work like Another You, which features genetically engineered bacteria to express a series of colours incorporating the DNA of jellyfish and coral. 

September 5-December 29. Leeum Museum, 60-16 Itaewon-ro 55-gil, Yongsan District, Seoul

For his first solo exhibition in Seoul, artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan presents Zifzafa, an exhibition about the sonics of self-determination and the noise of wind turbines in Golan Heights, Syria.

The title is an Arabic word that refers to a wind that “rattles and shakes all in its path”. In the show, the wind becomes a way to conceptually navigate and understand social relations, as a reflection of the connections between space and people that can be felt and also as a divisive and disruptive force that restricts, confines and obscures through the noise it creates. 

On view is a body of new work, including a film and a sculpture with a video component. The artist is also doing a special performance on September 4. He will recite an audio visual essay titled Natq, which features testimonies and archival material related his distant relative Bassel Abi Chaine, a member of the Druze community, and tells a story of hidden histories of war and politics associated with a majority of the Druze community in Lebanon.

Describing himself as someone with a “private ear”, Abu Hamdan’s work is built on sound—he conducts sonic investigations around the world—to aesthetically reconstruct ideas and events in parts of the world and society where people and communities often live on societal margins, and are exposed to warfare and violence. His work has been used as evidence in multiple legal cases, and he works with his newly founded organisation Earshot to produce works (including ones on view in the Seoul exhibition) and NGOs to bring to light new perspectives on global issues and garner support for those suffering from the consequence of conflict.

Until November 3. Barakat Contemporary, 58-4 Samcheong-ro Jongno-gu, Seoul

Renowned artist Do Ho Suh’s eagerly awaited Speculations exhibition at Art Sonje opened last month, marking his second show at the art space; the last one was in 2003.

The exhibition features works the artist has been working on since 2005. This body of work is inspired by his personal experiences and the idea of memory that blurs boundaries between fact and fantasy. Also on view is a new work, Bridge Project (2024), which serves as a culmination of Suh’s practice; it reflects an architectural reimagining of a place that connects the cities Suh has called home: Seoul, New York and London. 

Best known for his delicate, ethereal sculptures and installations of utensils, furniture as well as architectural elements of homes Suh has lived in all over the world, recreated from thin nylon fabric, Suh forms narratives exploring cultural intersections and diasporic living, at the centre of which lie ideas of memory and home. 

Until November 3. Art Sonje, 87 Yulgok-ro 3-gil, Jongno District, Seoul

Famed Scandinavian artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset are back in Asia with Spaces at Amorepacific Museum of Art.

It is their most extensive presentation in Asia yet. Featuring over 60 works, both new and old, with five immersive installations, the show stages architectural interventions that provide encounters for visitors. Among the installations, which includes the recreation of restaurant and artist’s studio, is a full-scale house. Measuring approximately 140 sq m, the work holds sculptures and pieces of furniture that serve as clues helping to decode the lives of its fictional inhabitants. An installation centred around an iconic emblem of the duo’s practice—the empty swimming pool—is also on view.

Until February 23, 2025. Amorepacific Museum of Art, 100 Hangang-daero, Yongsan District, Seoul