Gyeonggi Ceramics Biennale 2026

LEE Wan explores the relationship between individuals and society. Through extensive research and data collection, he examines social structures such as globalization, capitalism, and inequality and how they shape individual lives. He works across a wide range of media, including sculpture, film, installation, and artificial intelligence.

Treasure - From Existence into Information, from Information into Existence is a kind of “imaginary Asian museum” made up of 30 recreated Asian artifacts and Buddhist statues produced through 3D scanning and ceramic printing. The project began when Lee traveled to historical sites across Asia and encountered Buddhist statues whose bodies remained but whose heads were missing. In contrast, he found Buddha heads from Asia displayed in European museums. The fact that the bodies and heads now exist in different parts of the world became a key point of departure for the work.

Lee recorded around 30 artifacts from the Asian Art Museum at the Humboldt Forum in Germany as 3D data. For this Biennale, he collaborated with ceramic artist Seongman Ahn to give this data physical form again through a range of ceramic techniques. Objects that once existed in material form were transformed into digital information and now return with new ceramic bodies.

Lee thinks of the data from these artifacts as a kind of “soul.” As the digitally preserved artifacts acquire new ceramic bodies, they do more than simply reproduce their past forms. They can begin new stories in different times and places. By revisiting this dispersed cultural heritage, the work asks who owns it, how it should be remembered, and how history can be reconstructed in a new context.