RIT grad named a 2026 MacArthur Fellow for her innovative artwork

Artist Christine “CK” Sun Kim, who graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2002 with support from RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf, has been named a 2026 MacArthur Fellow. The prestigious award, known as a “genius grant,” comes with an $800,000 stipend to use as she desires.

Kim, an American artist based in Berlin, Germany, uses her art to reflect how sound operates in society, deconstructing the politics of sound and exploring how oral languages operate as social currency. Working across drawing, performance, video and large-scale murals, she explores her relationship to spoken and signed languages, her built and social environments, and the world at large.

She currently has exhibits in Luxembourg and in Seoul, Korea, and has exhibited and performed internationally, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art, both in New York; the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.; and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

A video of a Ted Talk she presented in 2016 has nearly 750,000 views.

In 2020, Kim signed America the Beautiful during the Super Bowl. In 2022, she was named RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf Distinguished Alum of the Year.

In April, she returned to the RIT campus as featured speaker for NTID’s Edmund Lyon Memorial Lectureship Series. Caroline Solomon, NTID president and RIT vice president, said “Christine Sun Kim’s groundbreaking work challenges audiences to experience sound, language, and access in entirely new ways. Her recognition as a MacArthur Fellow is a powerful testament to her creative vision and global impact, and the RIT/NTID community is immensely proud to celebrate her extraordinary achievement.”

Kim, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in applied science and technology, is one of 20 Fellows named this year by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which supports creative people, effective institutions, and influential networks building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. The Fellowship is awarded to talented individuals in a variety of fields who have shown exceptional originality in and dedication to their creative pursuits. Nominations are anonymous by leaders in their respective fields and considered by an anonymous selection committee.

Kim joins fellow RIT alum Emily Thompson ’84 (physics) who was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2005 for her work as a historian of science and technology.