Main Prize for Otobong Nkanga

With solo exhibitions at MoMA in New York and the Tate Modern in London, or the impressive survey exhibition this year at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Otobong Nkanga (born 1974 in Kano, Nigeria) is undoubtedly one of the most renowned artists of our time. Her international significance is underscored not least by her participation in the recently opened 61st Venice Biennale.

In her first solo exhibition in Hamburg, the Antwerp-based artist Otobong Nkanga focuses on two key works based on her own research. Contained Measures of a Kolanut is a multimedia installation on the cultural history of the Nigerian kolanut and its global influence. By creating a direct encounter with a single resource that reflects an entire history of trade, Nkanga redirects attention back to the material realities of a globalized present, which is all too often understood only in macroeconomic terms. With the modular spatial installation Tsumeb Fragments, Nkanga tells the multifaceted story of the Green Hill mine in Tsumeb, Namibia, and how the hill was irrevocably changed after the sustainable extraction of various minerals in the soil by the Ovambo people for their own use was displaced by industrial mining under German colonial rule.

Complemented by her impressive tapestries, documentary photographs, and videos, Otobong Nkanga uses this exhibition to open up a space for reflection on landscapes, memories, individual consumer behavior, and the shifting of power structures during and after the colonization of the African continent. She is thus a critical observer of the Anthropocene while simultaneously demonstrating how adaptable nature is—if necessary, even without humans, as her tapestry After We Are Gone illustrates.

Otobong Nkanga will donate the prize money in its entirety to her foundation, which is dedicated to supporting the long-term artistic project Carved to Flow in her home country of Nigeria.

Finkenwerder Grant for Leyla Yenirce

Leyla Yenirce (born 1992 in Qubînê, Kurdistan) completed her master’s degree under Jutta Koether at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg in 2022.⁠ ⁠She was previously awarded the 2024 Berlin Art Prize and the 2022 ars viva Prize for her artistic work and is one of the distinctive voices of her generation of artists. She is currently attracting significant attention from German and international art institutions—including the Landesmuseum Oldenburg, Museum Brandhorst Munich, Mudam Luxembourg, and m47 Contemporary Leipzig—as well as major art magazines.

In the exhibition space, visitors are overwhelmed by the power of her video and sound installation Being Strong Is Hard, in which the artist presents her subject matter in a deliberately reduced yet simultaneously haunting audiovisual language. The video shows found footage of female Kurdish freedom fighters, activists, and journalists alternating with pixelated landscape shots in rapid succession, accompanied by a hard electronic beat. The artist thus relentlessly confronts the viewer with the difficult question: How can one resist military and media dominance and defend freedom? The women Leyla Yenirce shows here have made their choice. That this is a hard one, with all its implications, is immediately palpable.

Artist Talk: On 5 June 2026 at 6:00 p.m., Prof. Yalda Afsah will speak with Leyla Yenirce about her artistic work.

Finkenwerder Art Prize

Initiated in 1999 by the Kulturkreis Finkenwerder e.V., the Finkenwerder Art Prize underwent a realignment in 2022 in cooperation with the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg: The HFBK Hamburg expanded the prize to also promote emerging artists and now hosts the exhibition of the award winners at the ICAT on Lerchenfeld. Since then, in addition to the main prize of 20,000 euros, the Finkenwerder Grant from the HFBK Hamburg has also been awarded. It includes an award of 10,000 euros and is aimed at graduates of the university. Out of a deep sense of connection to the Finkenwerder site, Airbus Operations GmbH is funding the art prize in its entirety: with a grant of 50,000 euros, the company is covering the prize money, as well as the costs of staging the exhibition and producing the publication.

The jury that selected the 2026 award winners included Yalda Afsah, Professor at the HFBK; Kader Attia, Professor at the HFBK; Martin Karcher, Curator at the Kunstverein in Hamburg; Martin Köttering, President of the HFBK; Ina Günther and Kerstin Loeffler, Kulturkreis Finkenwerder e.V.; as well as Jessica McClam, freelance artist, Hamburg.