Press release -
MUNCH presents Kim Hankyul’s Shore, a new SOLO OSLO exhibition
Kim Hankyul ((b.1990, Busan, South Korea) presents a new installation in the distinctive gallery space on Level 10 at MUNCH. Titled Shore, the work is an immersive underwater landscape, composed of motorised sculptures, holograms, light and sound. The installation is the fifth edition in MUNCH’s SOLO OSLO series, which is a central part of the museum’s commitment to developing and supporting contemporary art and artists in Oslo.
For this new installation, Kim Hankyul draws on the testimonies of various individuals for whom the ocean has been essential, including a North Korean defector, who escaped the country via the Yellow Sea; Haenyeo (“ocean women”), a community of female free divers from the South-Korean island of Geoje; and a group of divers who work on rescue and cleaning operations.
Hankyul says, “Shore explores how the underwater world has been used as a space for identities formed by individuals who are not protected by institutional or social structures on land. For them, the ocean is a both a means of escape, a source of living – and a cemetery.”
Hankyul has created a subaquatic world through lighting design and a sonic landscape made from moving sculptures comprised of wood, metal rods, keyboards, hologram fans and motors. Hankyul has a long-standing interest in the work of Foley artists, who use physical objects to create sounds effects for radio and moving images, named after Jack Foley (1891– 1967). The whole sculptural installation is suspended from the gallery’s 8-meter-high ceiling. The carpeted floor gives associations to standing on the ocean bed and looking up at the sunlight breaking through the surface of the water.
“Kim Hankyul has previously shown several distinctive, kinetic installations that explore the sensory slippages between technology, myth and marginalised bodies. At MUNCH he has had the opportunity to scale up, and this SOLO OSLO exhibition is his most complex and ambitious to date”, says MUNCH curator Tominga O’Donnell.
“SOLO OSLO is part of our commitment to developing the Oslo art scene. The series of solo exhibitions with emerging artists in the city opens the museum up to a diversity of new voices, perspectives and experiences”, says Tone Hansen, director of MUNCH.
SOLO OSLO contributes to developing the local art scene in Oslo by giving newly established artists and mediators an opportunity to develop their practice.
Complementing Hankyul’s new installation, Stephanie Serrano Sundby (b. Oslo, Norway, 1992) has created a new distinct mediation project. Sundby aims to create spaces at the museum for neurodivergent young adults through her project, which is rooted in the ethos “nothing about us without us”.
Following an open call, artist Kim Hankyul and mediator Stephanie Serrano Sundby were chosen by a jury consisting of Amina Sahan, Yamile Calderón, Ragnhild Aamås, Tove Aadland Sørvåg, Zeenat Amiri Waaler and jury leader Tominga O’Donnell. Previous editions of SOLO OSLO have showcased talents such as Sandra Mujinga and Constance Tenvik.
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Kim Hankyul
Level 10, MUNCH, Oslo
Exhibition: 27.02.2026 – 17.05.2026
This is the fifth exhibition in the SOLO OSLO series, an annual exhibition format in which an emerging, Oslo-based artist gets a solo show of new work at MUNCH.
SOLO OSLO has been supported by Talent Norge and Canica.
Tominga O’Donnell is the curator of the exhibition.
Previous artists in the SOLO OSLO series are Sandra Mujinga, Apichaya Wanthiang, Admir Batlak and Constance Tenvik.
Kim Hankyul was selected after an open call by a jury comprised of Ragnhild Aamås (Unge Kunstneres Samfund/the young artists’ association), Amina Sahan (Transcultural Arts Production), Yamile Calderón (Billedkunstnerne i Oslo/visual artists in Oslo), Tove Aadland Sørvåg (MUNCH) and Tominga O’Donnell (MUNCH).
A publication will be produced for the exhibition with texts by Tominga O’Donnell and Leeji Hong, designed by Anette L’orange.
Kolab Arkitekter have worked with Kim Hankyul and the team at MUNCH on the layout of the exhibition.
Kim Hankyul has been in residence at Edvard Munch’s former studio at Ekely for four months in the run-up to the exhibition.
About Kim Hankyul
Kim Hankyul (b. 1990, Busan, South Korea) lives and works in Oslo. He holds a bachelor's degree in Aesthetics from Seoul National University and a master's degree in Art from The Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen. Hankyul held the solo exhibition, Bildungsroman, at Nitja Centre for Contemporary Art in 2023. Other exhibitions include Entree in Bergen, and Oslo Kunstforening, where he was awarded the Sparebankstiftelsen DNB's grant 2022 for the kinetic sound installation, AV Buddha, which was acquired by the Astrup Fearnley Museum. He has also held exhibitions at Kunstnerforbundet, Atelier Nord, and Høstutstillingen in Oslo, where he was awarded the Kistefos Prize in 2021; and Ekkofestivalen, KRAFT and Northing Space in Bergen. He has had several residencies including at the Pilchuk Glass School i Stanwood (USA), BEK – Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts and NKD – Nordic Artists’ Centre in Dale.
About MUNCH
MUNCH is home to the world's largest collection of world-renowned Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863–1944). The museum’s new building, designed by Estudio Herreros, opened on Oslo’s waterfront in 2021, and houses several galleries and performance spaces over 13 floors. Tone Hansen has been its director since October 2022.
MUNCH presents an exhibition programme of modern and contemporary art alongside its collection displays. Recent group exhibitions have focused on Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Nordic Modernism. The contemporary programme includes the MUNCH Triennale with an emphasis on the relationship between art and new technologies, and SOLO OSLO, a series of annual solo exhibitions that showcases emerging artists on the Oslo scene. MUNCH also presents solo exhibitions with a range of internationally established artists, and a series of performance commissions. In 2024, the museum inaugurated the MUNCH Award honouring artistic freedom of expression.
