Museum of Arts and Design Announces Hai-Wen Lin as Winner of 2025 Burke Prize

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The chicago-based artist and designer transforms fashion and
kite making into sculptural forms that invite collaboration
with Wind, Sunlight and Sky. 2025 Birk Prize Installation
February 28th to October 11th, 2026 The Museum of Arts and

(00:20):
Design MAD is proud to announce High Wenlin as the winner of the
2025 Burke Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in
contemporary craft. Established in 2018 and named
for craft collectors Marian and Russell Burke, the prize awards
an unrestricted 50,000 to an artist under the age of 45

(00:42):
working in the United States whose practice demonstrates
conceptual rigor, relevance, anda mastery of materials and
process. Lin S practice explores the
attunement of the body to the environment through fashion,
sculpture and kite making. Their works, described as
couture for the wind, merged garment construction with flight

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engineering, resulting in textiles and sculptural kites
that can be both worn and flown.Dyeing fabrics with sunlight and
designing kites that double as garments, the chicago-based
artist collapses boundaries between art, design and
performance through poetic encounters with the elements.

(01:23):
From a distance, Lin S kites soar high above the earth.
Up close, they reveal delicate details like ceramic beads,
feathers, rust dyes and hand dyed rope, creating work that is
both deeply intimate and cosmically expansive.
A dedicated exhibition of Lin S work will be on view at MAD from

(01:44):
February 28th to October 11th, 2026, offering visitors the
opportunity to experience their innovative practice first hand.
The Burke Prize honors artists whose work extends the
possibilities of craft in both material and meaning, said
Alyssa author, Mad S deputy director of Curatorial Affairs,

(02:06):
and William and Mildred Lasdun, Chief Curator.
High Wendland S kites are both intimate and monumental.
Hand dyed fabrics carry traces of the body, yet soar into the
sky as architectural structures through meticulous making and
imaginative reconfiguration. High When reminds us that Kraft
is not static. It is alive, mutable and capable

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of expanding how we think about our relationship to the natural
world and to one another. Mad Trustee Marian Burke, who
endowed the prize with her husband Russell, said Rusty and
I created the Burke Prize to champion the future of Kraft and
High When embodies that spirit beautifully in a digital first

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world. Their practice reminds us of the
deep human need to slow down, tomake, to gather and to wonder.
We congratulate Haiwen on their exceptional achievement.
A jury of professionals in the fields of art, craft and design
selected Lynn as the winner fromhundreds of submissions.

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The 2025 jurors are Selva Apparicio, artist and 2023 Burke
Prize winner, Andrew Gardner, independent curator, writer and
design historian, and Angelic Viscarando Laboy, independent
curator, writer, and art historian.
For me, Lin S practice stood outnot only for its conceptual

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strength and material intelligence, but for the way it
creates A threshold between perception and possibility, said
Apparicia. Their work unsettles fixed
identities and opens portals, literal and symbolic, that
invite us to imagine what lies beyond.
This is precisely the kind of expansive thinking the Burke

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Prize exists to honor. The 2025 Burke Prize jury also
recognized 4 finalists for theirimpressive bodies of work,
innovative use of materials, andtheir forward thinking
perspective on the role of craft.
Today they are Sula Bermudez, Silverman, Los Angeles, CA, Shen

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Lujo, Providence, RI, Rahul De Lara, New York, NY and Abigail
Lucien, Queens, NY. The winner and finalists will be
honored at an invitation only celebration on November 5th,
2025 attended by artists, patrons and supporters of the
museum. About High Wen Lin Born in

(04:39):
Urbana, IL, lives in Chicago, ILHigh Wen Lin is an artist living
somewhere beneath the sky. Their work explores
constructions of their body and the attunement of oneself to the
environment, often moving through metaphor, etymology,
sunlight, wind, and the way timepasses perfectly when you are

(05:00):
out walking on a beautiful day. Lynn is an alumnus of the
Skowgang School of Painting and Sculpture and received a Master
of Design in Fashion, Body and Garment from the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago. They are a 2025 Lumen Arts
Visual Arts Fellow, a 2024 American Craft Council emerging

(05:21):
artist, a 2023 CFDA Fashion Future graduate, and a winner of
the Hopper Prize. They have been an artist in
residence at McDowell, Bema Center for Contemporary Art,
Lighthouse Works, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Oxbow
School of Art, and the Grand Canyon National Park, among

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others. Their work has been featured in
publications such as Hyper Allergic, American Craft, SC
Magazine, and the Chicago Reader.
Recent solo exhibitions include the Center for Cultural and
Artistic Practices 2025, Contemporary Art Museum, Saint
Louis 2025, Facility 2024, and Prairie 2023.

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Lynn has also exhibited at the Houston Center for Contemporary
Craft, the Chinese American Museum of Chicago, the Wassaic
Project, Hyde Park Arts Center, the Pittsburgh Glass Center, the
walls of their home, their friend S home on a lake, on
their body and in the air. You can often find their work by

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looking up about the Burke Prize.
The Burke Prize is a contemporary art award that
reinforces the Museum of Arts and Design as commitment to
celebrating the next generation of artists advancing the
disciplines that shaped the American studio craft movement.
Named for Marian and Russell Burke, passionate collectors of

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craft and long time supporters of MAD, the Prize awards 50,000
in unrestricted funds to AU dot S based artist age 45 or under,
working in glass, fiber, clay, metal and or wood.
Selected through an open call process by a distinguished jury
of curators, artists and scholars.
The winner is recognized with both the prize and a display of

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their work at MAD 1 Burke Prize.Artist also is chosen for the
Burke Residency at the Studio ofthe Corning Museum of Glass.
A1 to five week residency with full benefits of the Museum S
Artist in Residence program. Since its founding in 2018, the
Burke Prize has spotlighted artists whose conceptually

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rigorous and materially innovative practices push the
boundaries of contemporary craft, including past winners
Selva Apparicio 2023, Cherise Purlina Weston 2021, Indira
Allegra 2019 and Canopahanska Lugger 2018.

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The Museum of Arts and Design gratefully acknowledges the
generosity of Marian and RussellBurke for making possible the
2025 Burke Prize. About the Museum of Arts and
Design The Museum of Arts and Design MAD champions
contemporary makers across creative fields and presents the
work of artists, designers, and artisans who apply the highest

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level of ingenuity and skill. Since the museum S founding in
1956 by philanthropist and visionary Aileen Osborne, Web
Matt has celebrated all facets of making and the creative
processes by which materials aretransformed from traditional
techniques to cutting edge technologies.

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Today, the Museum escuratorial program builds upon a rich
history of exhibitions that emphasize a cross disciplinary
approach to art and design and reveals the workmanship behind
the objects and environments that shape our everyday lives.
MADD provides an international platform for practitioners who
are influencing the direction ofcultural production and driving

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21st century innovation, and fosters a participatory setting
for visitors to have direct encounters with skilled making
and compelling works of art and design.
For more information, visit madmuseum.org.
Verkie Prize 2025 at M8 Museum.