Sun Lee is a Korean textile artist and social designer based in Amsterdam. Drawing from her background in fashion design, her practice originates from a critical reflection on industrialized fashion systems and structures of consumption. Through textiles, craft, labor, and material-based processes, she investigates the relationships between material, the body, memory, and social structures.

Working with Korean traditional materials and techniques such as Hanji, Mosi, paper cutting, and weaving structures, Lee reinterprets craft within contemporary contexts, approaching it not as a fixed heritage object but as a social, psychological, and material system shaped through labor, transmission, ritual, and repetition.

Her work often reveals accumulated traces of time, tension, and embodied labor through repetitive and performative processes. In recent projects, she has focused on unraveling woven textile structures thread by thread and reconstructing them into new woven and spatial forms, exploring sensations surrounding control, anxiety, contamination, and order. Through installation, performance, textiles, and craft-based research, her practice examines the relationships between tradition and contemporaneity, production and disappearance, deconstruction and reconstruction, while investigating how materials can embody contemporary emotional and bodily experiences.




Awards/Recognitions

Stimuleringsfonds Grant Programme for Talent Development
The Netherlands, September 2023 - November 2024

ADC 101st Annual Awards, Winner (GOLD CUBE)
New York, USA, 2022

Finalists of the Third Edition of the Ro Plastic Prize 2021
Responsible Innovation Projects Category
Galleria Rossana Orlandi
Milan, Italy, 2021

Nextgen designer awards, Winner
Daegu City Government x Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy
Daegu, Korea, 2014

Korea Research Institute for Fashion Industry, Creation Grants
Daegu City Government
Daegu, Korea, 2013

Seoul Fashion Creative Studio, Creation Grants
Seoul City Government
Seoul, Korea, 2011

Doota Venture Designer Conference, Bronze Award
Doosan Tower
Seoul, Korea, 2009



Group exhibitions / Shows

From Origin To Wish 
Hanji House
Seoul, South Korea, February - April 2025

Skin of time, Hanji 
Maison&Objet Paris
Paris, France, September 2024

In Search Of... 
Dutch Design Week 2023
Eindhoven, The Netherlands, October 2024

Amsterdam Fashion Week X Hyundai 
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 2024

Magic Millstone
Microlab
Dutch Design Week 2023
Eindhoven, The Netherlands, October 2023

Hanji towers
Kazerne
Dutch Design Week 2023
Eindhoven, The Netherlands, October 2023

CODA PAPER ART 2023
CODA Museum
Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, June - November 2023

Younhyun Material Library
Space BE gallery
Seoul, South Korea, May - September 2023

Hanji Experiment pH
Out of the Box
Seoul, South Korea, April 2023

A letter to Nature
Culture Station Seoul 284
Seoul, South Korea, April-June 2023

‘Feather and Constellation’’
Hanji Culture Center
Seoul, KR, November - December 2022

‘Soft Shelter’
Space BE gallery
Seoul, KR, November - December 2022

‘DANDAN sculpture’
Isola Design, Dutch Design Week 2022
Eindhoven, NL, October 2022

‘개물성무’
Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation x Space BE gallery
Seoul, KR, November - December 2021

‘Tools for Conviviality’
Cheongju Craft Biennale
Cheongju, KR, September - October 2021

‘Consumption of Heritage’
The Ro Plastic Prize 2021
Milan, IT, September 2021

‘Consumption of Heritage’
United Fashion Festival, MAD
Brussels, BE, April 2021

‘Cross : weft & warp’
HOW & WOW Linen, Crafts Council Nederland
Dutch Design Week 2020
Virtual, October 2020

‘Consumption of Heritage’
La Manufacture, A Labour of Love
World Design Capital
Lille, FR, September - November 2020

‘Consumption of Heritage’
Sustainable Innovations
Munich Fabric Start 2020
Munich, DE, February 2020

‘Consumption of Heritage’
G19, Design Academy Eindhoven Graduation Show
Dutch Design Week 2019, De Campina
Eindhoven, NL, October 2019

‘The Sculpture’
Dutch Design Week 2018
Temporary Art Center
Eindhoven, NL, October 2018

‘Colour Geographies’
Atelier Luma
Arles, FR, February 2017

‘How do we save time?’
Timelab
Ghent, BE, November 2016

‘옷(The Clothes)’
Amado Art Gallery
Seoul, KR, March 2015

‘Nextgen Designer Winner Show’
Chengdu, CN, January 2015

Who’s next
Porte de Versailles
Paris, FR, December 2014

‘Nextgen Designer Winner Show’
Korea Research Institute for Fashion Industry
Daegu, KR, 2014

Who’s next
Porte de Versailles
Paris, FR, July 2014

Craft Trend Fair
Coex
Seoul, KR, December 2012

Mode Shaghai
Shaghai, CN, March 2012

‘Korea Culture Design’
Kyungbokkung National Palace Museum
Seoul, KR, 2011
 


Talks/Lectures

World Hope Forum
Founded by Lidewij Edelkoort and Philip Fimmano
Hosted by Diana Kloster
April 2022

Textile Design department
Seoul Women’s University
Seoul, KR, November 2021

Living Art & Design department
Sangmyung University
Seoul, KR, December 2020

‘Consumption of Heritage’ Presentation
The Arena ‘G19’, De Campina
Eindhoven, NL, October 2019