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Art award ceremony: Innovative voices of youth in Kassel honored!
On July 28, 2025, the Kassel Art University awarded prizes for outstanding student works that address social issues.
Art award ceremony: Innovative voices of youth in Kassel honored!
On July 28, 2025, outstanding student works were honored as part of the tour at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. The expert jury, consisting of Ayşe Güleç, Dr. Aykan Safoğlu and Prof. Dr. Alena Williams, honored creative projects that help address significant social issues with several awards. The Kassel Art University will once again succeed in promoting innovative art production and making it visible.
The SV SparkassenVersicherung prize, which comes with a prize of 2,500 euros, was particularly highlighted. The first prize winners are Berfin Topal and the duo robyn / sarah bach. Topal's work *Still There* addresses the loss of Kurdish relatives in Istanbul. Her drawings connect different times and spaces and focus on Emine Ocak, a fighter for justice.
Thematic diversity and award ceremony
The second award-winning project in this category, *a child's play*, by robyn / sarah bach, offers a critical look at transparency and childhood. The combined screen printing technique combines children's play with military themes and looks at political camouflage and visual meaning from a new perspective.
Among the award winners from the employees of the Kassel School of Art is Mel Reckert with her work *Ecstasy in Five Stages*. She uses woven materials in a painting that invites physical engagement with art. Áron Farkas also receives recognition with *Magic Gulyás*, which tells the story of a friendship. Color and cinematic techniques are used to convey emotions.
The two works *FMS* and *Expulsión 1, 2, 3* by Linda Deuse and Claudia Duensing received the Birgitt Bolsmann Prize. Deuse addresses fibromyalgia syndrome in her installation, while Duensing explores birth and motherhood in her work without conventional furniture.
Social themes in art
The awards are not only an expression of creative work, but also shed light on important social issues. The Kurdish women's movement, for example, is often made invisible, as shown by the reporting on the murder of three Kurdish women in Paris in 2013, which made headlines around the world. This movement, which is associated with the slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” – a call for freedom and equality for women – also reflects the overcoming of various forms of discrimination.[Freitag.de reports that…]
Art from Iraqi Kurdistan also addresses the role of women in this complex political context. Artists such as Awder Osman and Ahmed Nabaz address gender equality and femicide in their works by processing the stories of affected women. They use local materials and creative techniques to visually represent the dramatic effects of violence and social discrimination.[Goethe.de reports that...]
The award ceremony in Kassel shows how important it is to promote dialogue and use art as a platform for social issues. The event, which took place from July 24th to 27th, 2025, was designed by an interdisciplinary team of students led by Prof. Bjørn Melhus. A special thank you went to the jury, the prize donors and the student organization team. The award-winning works represent a variety of perspectives and invite you to address the pressing questions of our time.