Simone C Niquille receives the Swiss Grand Award for Design 2026 for her transdisciplinary practice at the intersection of design, research, and education.
Her work examines how digital image systems shape bodies, spaces, and perception. Through films, installations, and research-based projects, she reveals how standards and classifications embedded in technology influence the way we see and understand the world. As the first recipient of the award in the field of Media & Interaction Design, her practice represents a new generation of designers who redefine design as a critical and investigative discipline.

The Swiss Grand Award for Design is endowed with CHF 40,000 per award and, in 2026, will be granted on the recommendation of the Federal Design Commission to the design and architecture studio atelier oï, the graphic designer Ursula Hiestand, and the designer and researcher Simone C. Niquille.

Click here for more info on Niquille’s artistic research.

The artist, who this year designed the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale together with HFBK alumna Sung Tieu, had only recently been appointed professor at HFBK Hamburg and was due to begin her teaching in October.

In her artistic practice, she engaged critically and independently with current social shifts, combining historical reflection with a complex and ambivalent visual language. In her teaching, she was committed to supporting students in developing their own artistic voice and to helping them enter professional practice through networks, interdisciplinary collaboration, and practical competencies.

With her passing, the university loses a significant artistic personality. She leaves a profound gap.

The University of Fine Arts Hamburg is delighted to announce a new collaboration with the Moontower Foundation. Starting in spring 2026, two Rebecca Horn scholarships will be awarded annually to outstanding HFBK students for a semester abroad in London. The scholarship comprises a grant of €2,500 each and enables recipients to devote themselves to their artistic practice and studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, as part of the Art School Alliance student exchange programme.

The Moontower Foundation was established in 2007 by the artist and HFBK graduate Rebecca Horn (1944–2024) with the intention of ensuring the preservation, research, and documentation of her artistic work, supporting young artists, and facilitating art projects in the fields of sculpture and film and video art. Following the artist’s death in September 2024, the foundation’s interim director, Yasmil Raymond, suggested a collaboration with the HFBK Hamburg.

The Rebecca Horn Scholarship is intended to commemorate a formative experience abroad for the artist, who was able to spend the summer semester of 1971 in London with the support of her professors at the HFBK Hamburg. The scholarship also serves to encourage the next generation of young art students in Hamburg to look beyond Germany and to build an international network at an early stage in their career.

The first Rebecca Horn scholarship goes to Arjun Panayal, who was nominated by the AG Internationales jury of the HFBK Hamburg for the Art School Alliance exchange at Goldsmiths, University of London, in the Spring Term of 2026.

The HFBK Hamburg was deeply saddened to learn of the death of British-Pakistani conceptual artist Ceal Floyer. Ceal Floyer was a visiting professor and substitute professor in the sculpture department at the HFBK Hamburg on several occasions between 2014 and 2017.⁠ ⁠Throughout her various teaching roles, she was an important source of inspiration for the university and its students. We will miss her greatly as an artist and teacher.