MIAD faculty Yi receives Wisconsin Academy Fellows Award

Multidisciplinary artist, curator, mentor and Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) professor Jason S. Yi has been named a 2026 Fellow of the prestigious Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. Yi is one of “16 extraordinary Wisconsinites who have demonstrated a lifelong commitment to intellectual discourse and public service,” the Academy said in its awards announcement.

“Academy Fellows are groundbreakers who have had a deep, meaningful impact and significantly contribute to a vibrant and brilliant Wisconsin,” said Wisconsin Academy Executive Director Erika Monroe-Kane. “Reflecting the extraordinary in Wisconsin, this 2026 Wisconsin Fellows Class connects us to what is special about Wisconsin and its people.”

“Being named an Academy Fellow is a significant honor,” says Yi, who is a Fine Art + New Studio Practice professor at MIAD. “As a visual artist, this recognition affirms a practice rooted in exploration, aiming to connect material, place and lived experience in ways that broaden our understanding and perception of the world around us. It reinforces that art is not only a form of expression but also an essential means of questioning, reflecting and engaging in cultural dialogue.”

“As an educator at MIAD, this recognition carries special significance,” Yi says. “It symbolizes the collective effort of fostering curiosity, discipline and imagination in the next generation of artists and thinkers. Teaching broadens my practice, an ongoing exchange of ideas where mentorship, experimentation and critical thinking shape both student growth and my own evolving work.”

In 2014 Yi co-founded with Leah Kolb the Plum Blossom Initiative, which oversees the Bridge Work professional development program to mentor emerging artists from Milwaukee and beyond. He is also director of Hawthorn Contemporary gallery.

Yi is described by the Academy as “a cornerstone of the Milwaukee art scene whose monumental installations challenge our perceptions of the built and natural environment.” He exhibits nationally and internationally and has received a Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship, two Mary L. Nohl Fellowships, the Milwaukee Artist of the Year award and the Kamiyama (Japan) Artist in Residence Fellowship. Most recently Yi received a John Michael Kohler Art Center Arts & Industry Residency for fall 2026.

Jason S. Yi, “Fortified…Super,” 2024-2025.

Yi’s work is in the collections of the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Museum of Wisconsin Art, Kamiyama Museum of Art, Korean Cultural Center in Los Angeles and the Edward F. Albee Foundation in New York. He currently has work on view through May 16 in the Haggerty Museum of Art’s This Side of the Stars: Rauschenberg’s “Stoned Moon” in the Company of Kite, Paglen and Yi.

The Fellows will be inducted into the Academy in fall 2026.

See Yi’s work in photography, video, sculpture, drawing and site-specific installations on his website.