Ashfika Rahman wins Future Generation Art Prize 2024

Ashfika Rahman (35, Bangladesh)  is the winner of the Future Generation Art Prize 2024, the seventh edition of the global art prize for artists under 35, established by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in 2009. The international jury announced the winner at the award ceremony on October 29 in Kyiv. 

Ashfika Rahman (35, Bangladesh)  received a total of 100,000 USD: 60,000 USD as a cash prize, and 40,000 USD to fund their artistic practice. An additional 20,000 USD was awarded to Special Prize winners Tara Abdullah Mohammed Sharif (27, Iraq), Bekhbaatar Enkhtur (29, Mongolia), Dina Mimi (29, Palestine), Hira Nabi (36, Pakistan), Ipeh Nur (30, Indonesia), Zhang Xu Zhan (35, Taiwan).  

Ashfika Rahman’s winning work for the PinchukArtCentre employs photography, prints, text and sculpture to examine the role of women in society. Often working with communities, Rahman articulates stories that have been historically silenced, not only in Bangladesh, where Rahman is based, but also globally. Drawing inspiration from territories that have been divided and renegotiated by geopolitical powers, Rahman’s work demonstrates a commitment and focus on the ideals of community building and repair in the face of collective trauma. 

The winners were chosen by the prize’s distinguished international jury, consisting of: Cecilia Alemani, Curator of The Milk of Dreams, 59th International Art Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia (2022); Björn Geldhof, Artistic Director at the PinchukArtCentre; Diane Lima, Independent curator, writer, and a key Black feminist voice in Brazilian contemporary art; Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Director and chief curator of Haus der Kulturen der Welt; Alicia Knock, Curator, Head of the Contemporary Creation and Prospective Department at the Centre Pompidou; Simon Njami, Independent curator, lecturer, art critic, and novelist and Hou Hanru, Art critic and curator, former Artistic Director of MAXXI, National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome.

The exhibition of the 21 shortlisted artists for the 7th edition of the Future Generation Art Prize is on show at the PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv until 19 January 2025. Featuring new works and recent projects by shortlisted artists, selected from over 12,000 entries across almost 200 countries, the artists bring unique cultural perspectives and a diversity of artistic approaches to Kyiv to engage with today’s most pressing issues. 

Established by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in 2009, the Future Generation Art Prize is a biannual global contemporary art prize open to all artists aged 35 or younger. Championing creativity, the prize continues Ukraine’s important connection with the global arts community. 

Ashfika Rahman addressed the audience: “This award feels particularly meaningful, especially given the global political climate we’re going through. Future Generation Art Prize offers a unique platform where voices can be heard openly, allowing us to be both expressive and politically engaged. This is a space where people from all over the world can speak freely. 

I’m very grateful for the opportunity, and I want to thank everyone who has stood by me throughout my artistic journey. This award isn’t just a recognition of today—it holds lasting significance. I commend the courage of the organizers, who, despite numerous challenges, successfully created an open platform for expression. This edition of the award will serve as a remarkable example for the future of contemporary art. I would also like to emphasize that my exhibition is a collective effort, made possible by the community I work with, the curators and the entire team.”

Commenting on Ashfika Rahman as the winner of the Future Generation Art Prize 2024, the Jury said: “The jury celebrates Rahman’s brave work that articulates stories that have been historically silenced, not only in Bangladesh and India where Rahman draws her inspiration from, but also globally. 

Echoing the history of the partitioning of the Indian subcontinent, and the resulting sociopolitical, religious, gender implications in the contemporary, her work is testament to a collective trauma, that is shared with the viewer but also transcended through the sublime yet humble and fragile aesthetics of the work. Taken from territories incessantly divided and renegotiated by various geopolitical powers, Rahman weaves a collective entity unfolding along a river that connects fragmented lands and bodies. A floating embroidery between land and sky links the human condition and aspiration for gender justice with mythology and spirituality. Rahman represents a future generation of artists that are committed to the ideals of community building and repair.”

Commenting on Tara Abdullah Mohammed Sharif as the winner of the special prize, the Jury said: “With a bold, fearless focus on the public space, Tara Abdullah Mohammed Sharif engages directly with the war in Ukraine, bridging it to her own experience as a Kurdish woman in Iraq. By creating a participatory installation where women affected by war are encouraged to come together and leave their mark, her work reflects the friction between violence and healing; speaking more broadly to women’s role in resistance across different geographies and times.”

Commenting on Hira Nabi as the winner of the special prize, the Jury said: “Hira Nabi’s installation that uses floating textiles, video projections and a sonic scape is an important contribution to artistic practices that address decolonial ecology. The installation employs fragmentation as methodology — both visually and sonically — inviting us to reflect on the multiple cracks and rubble that emerges from our continuous destruction of the environment. This work poetically reminds us that many of the conflicts we experience today are related to the extractivist practices towards our environment.”

Commenting on Ipeh Nur as the winner of the special prize, the Jury said:  “Using metaphor, Ipeh reconstructs the inner space that we carry within us; made of memories, myths, experiences and reflections about what surrounds us.  Her immersive installation provides a safe space for a personal geneaology of stories and myths embedded in her local environment. Drawing the visitor into a dreamlike environment, Ipeh invites us into a whole world within her work.” 

Commenting on Zhang Xu Zhan as the winner of the special prize, the Jury said: “Zhang Xu Zhan’s work transforms a family heritage into a radically contemporary expression combining traditional paper making with digital language. He creates surprisingly refreshing and pleasant new realms in which the destiny of humans and animals, society and nature, materiality and spirituality vividly and playfully interact each other. Eventually, traditions of imaginary practices and cultural aspirations are transcended into a new utopia of death, hope and joy coming together.”

Commenting on Dina Mimi as the winner of the special prize, the Jury said: “Dina Mimi’s work is impactful through her indirect comment on the political tensions in Palestine today. Through a simple yet inviting display, her video addresses themes of apartheid transnationally and trans-historically. Her approach not only poetically translates historical trauma but also examines the body as a site of opacity and disappearance. Mimi’s work fuses the personal and the political, strongly articulating word and image (using South African IsiXhosa as chosen language) to open up a path for cultural translation in the realm of the moving image.”

Commenting on Bekhbaatar Enkhtur as the winner of the special prize, the Jury said: “Bekhbaatar Enkhtur imagines a fantastic world through copper and beeswax sculptures, creating an immersive installation that conveys a new mythology based on Mongolian oral histories. His surprising installation invites us to a futuristic walkthrough using at hand materials to disrupt the established aesthetic hierarchies. The past, present and future merge ironically together to form a new poetic landscape.”

Addressing the audience, Björn Geldhof, Artistic Director at the PinchukArtCentre, said: “The jury were all incredibly touched by the work of the shortlisted artists for the Future Generation Art Prize this year, which marks our 15th anniversary in Kyiv. Many of the artists could not join us here to celebrate as we have done in previous years, but the care the team have taken to bring these important works to local audiences has been nothing short of inspirational. I want to thank all the artists in this year’s prize for their commitment to the prize and the work they have delivered. For us, the Future Generation Art Prize is not only about winners, it’s really about a collective of artists we bring together here in Ukraine. Having them here, having them as part of our history, of our family, has been extremely important.”

The shortlist of the Future Generation Art Prize 2024 includes Sinzo Aanza (33, Congo), Tara Abdullah Mohammed Sharif (27, Iraq), Julian Abraham ‘Togar’ (36, Indonesia), Andrius Arutiunian (32, Lithuania), Salim Bayri (31, Morocco), Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro (27, Brazil), Giulia Cenci (35, Italy), Nolan Oswald Dennis (35, South Africa), Yasmine El Meleegy (32, Egypt), Bekhbaatar Enkhtur (29, Mongolia), Veronika Hapchenko (28, Ukraine), Dana Kavelina (28, Ukraine), Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien (33, France), Dina Mimi (29, Palestine), Sandra Mujinga (34, Norway), Hira Nabi (36, Pakistan), Ipeh Nur (30, Indonesia), Ashfika Rahman (35, Bangladesh), Buhlebezwe Siwani (36, South Africa), Zhang Xu Zhan (35, Taiwan) and Ziyang Wu (33, China).  

A major contribution to the open participation of younger artists in the dynamic cultural development of societies in global transition, the Prize has supported the artistic development and production of new works of over 140 artists in exhibitions at the PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv and the Venice Biennale.

The Future Generation Art Prize is widely acknowledged as a springboard for emerging talent. Lynette Yiadom Boakye won the Prize in 2012, before going on to be shortlisted for the Turner Prize and a highly successful solo show at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 2015. The winner of the first edition of the Prize, Cinthia Marcelle, represented Brazil at the 57th International Art Exhibition in 2017. Previous main prize winners also include Dineo Seshee Bopape, winning in 2017, who represented South Africa at the 58th International Art Exhibition in 2019. See past winners of the prize here.