Otobong Nkanga, one of today’s most sought-after artists around the world, has been awarded the 2026 Finkenwerder Art Prize, including a grant of 20,000 euros. The public award ceremony will take place on 21 May 2026 along with an exhibition at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg, offering a unique opportunity to experience Nkanga’s work. At the same time, Leyla Yenirce will be awarded the Finkenwerder Grant from the HFBK Hamburg, with a value of 10,000 euros. On the occasion of the award ceremony, both artists will present their work in solo shows at the ICAT.

Main Prize for Otobong Nkanga

With solo exhibitions at MoMA in New York and the Tate Modern in London as well as the impressive retrospective currently on view at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Otobong Nkanga (born 1974 in Kano, Nigeria) is undoubtedly one of the most internationally renowned artists of our time. This is also evidenced by her participation in nearly all of the world’s most important art biennials, including the 58th Venice Biennale, documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens, the 14th Sharjah Biennial, and this year’s 36th São Paulo Biennial.

At the center of Otobong Nkanga’s artistic practice is the relationship between humanity and the Earth, and the materials extracted from it, from plants and seeds to rare earths and minerals. Based on the principle that energy is never lost, but is instead transformed into another form, Nkanga depicts metamorphoses of being in her drawings, watercolors, installations, large-scale tapestries, and performances. She is a critical observer of humanity as it interrupts natural cycles, brutally exploits the Earth, and throws it out of its natural balance. But she also shows us how adaptable nature is to changing conditions and that the Earth will ultimately continue to exist even without humanity. Her engagement with indigenous knowledge, as well as with the architectures and mythologies of the African continent, deepens Nkanga’s critical perspective on traditional European patterns of thought and current political developments in the Global North. “Support,” in both a social and an architectural sense, is essential for the existence of societal structures. Nkanga investigates potential alternative economies as well as alternative notions of support that can enrich our society once again.

Jury member Kader Attia: “With Otobong Nkanga, we are honoring an artist who captivates us with her multifaceted, poetic work—especially when she activates parts of her works in performances through music, movement, and energy. Her body becomes a medium, creating a unique connection between art, space, and life.”

Grant for Leyla Yenirce

Leyla Yenirce (born in 1992 in Qubîn, Kurdistan) completed her master’s degree under Jutta Koether at the HFBK Hamburg in 2022 and has already been awarded the 2024 Kunstpreis Berlin and the 2022 ars viva Prize. Her works have recently been exhibited at n.b.k. in Berlin (2025), the Kunstmuseum Magdeburg (2024), the Museum Folkwang in Essen (2024), the Falckenberg Collection at the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg (2024), and the Kunsthalle Münster (2024), among others. A solo exhibition at the Landesmuseum Oldenburg is planned for 2026.

In her artistic practice, Leyla Yenirce uses a multimedia approach to engage with representations of resistance as well as cultural, media, and military structures of dominance. She collects digital and analog visual material, which she incorporates into her interdisciplinary work in ways that are sometimes more and sometimes less obvious. Her visual archive attests to the widespread circulation of images depicting women in resistance, while simultaneously pointing to her own relationship with her native country of Kurdistan and the media’s influence on it. In her compositions, elaborate installations, video works, performances, and paintings, she masterfully applies various methods of sampling, layering, and collaging, thus responding to the material she uses. Yenirce is a cultural theorist, filmmaker, musician, painter, performer, and installation artist who combines all of these media in her artistic practice.

Jury member Yalda Afsah: “Leyla Yenirce creates powerful visual and acoustic spaces of resonance where collective and personal histories emerge, and in which violence, resistance, and memory become simultaneously palpable. We are recognizing her as an artist who has mastered the precise use of her media and transforms observation into a sensually perceptible tension.”

The jury for selecting the 2026 prizewinners this year included Yalda Afsah, Professor, HFBK; Kader Attia, Professor, HFBK; Martin Karcher, Curator, Kunstverein in Hamburg; Martin Köttering, President, HFBK; Ina Günther and Kerstin Loeffler, Kulturkreis Finkenwerder e.V.; and Jessica McClam, independent artist, Hamburg.

The Finkenwerder Art Prize, initiated by the Kulturkreis Finkenwerder e.V., is awarded every two years to an internationally outstanding artist whose work plays a significant role in the current art discourse. Past recipients include such notable figures as Georges Adéagbo, Renée Green, Candida Höfer, Christian Jankowski, and Julia Scher. Since 2022, the prize has been awarded in cooperation with the HFBK Hamburg, along with a grant for a promising HFBK graduate. Airbus Operations GmbH funds the prizes, including the exhibition and publication.

(26.10.2025)