Lap-See Lam has been selected as the 2025 recipient of the biennial Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award. She will receive a $100,000 honorarium, a solo exhibition at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Norway, and an acquisition budget to include her work in the museum’s permanent collection.
Stockholm-based Swedish artist Lap-See Lam obtained an MFA from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm in 2020. Her multimedia work draws on the aesthetics and cultural codes of the Cantonese diaspora, including shadow play and Cantonese opera, to reflect on the translation and mistranslation of cultural heritage.
Speaking about Lam’s work, Paulina Rider Wilhelmsen, founder of the award and member of the jury, said that ‘her practice is deeply personal yet widely resonant – there’s a certain magic in how she explores identity, migration, family, and memory. We were especially moved by how her work is intertwined with her own family’s story, honouring those who came before her and inviting them into the creative process’.
Inaugurated in 2019, the Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award aims to support an international contemporary artist who has made a significant contribution to the development of contemporary art within their field, and to promote their work to Norwegian and international audiences.
Lam was selected by an international jury comprised of María Inés Rodríguez, director of Walter Leblanc Foundation, Brussels, and founder of Tropical Papers; Michelle Kuo, chief curator at large and publisher at MoMA, New York; Elvira Dyangani Ose, director of MACBA, Barcelona; Paulina Rider Wilhelmsen, founder of LWAAP and Wilstar Social Impact, Oslo; Anne Hilde Neset, director of Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo; and Caroline Ugelstad, director of collection and exhibition and chief curator at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, and jury leader.
Lap-See Lam’s work will be on view at the PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, 25 April – 14 September and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 10 May – 24 August. Her exhibition at the Henie Onstad Kunstcenter will open in June 2026.
