Bangladeshi artist Ashfika Rahman wins PinchukArtCentre’s Future Generation Art Prize

Bangladeshi artist Ashfika Rahman has been named the winner of the PinchukArtCentre’s Future Generation Art Prize 2024. Her win was announced in Kyiv last week, having been delayed for a year due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

35-year-old Rahman, who is from Dhaka and is now based in Amsterdam, received a total prize of $100,000 (€92,000): $60,000 (€55,000) as a cash prize, and $40,000 (€37,000) to fund her artistic practice. 

Her winning work, Behula and a Thousand Tales – which spans photography, prints, text and sculpture, and explores the role of women in society, often working with stories that have been historically silenced, – was selected from over 12,000 submissions across nearly 200 countries. The jury praised it as "a floating embroidery between land and sky," noting how it “links the human condition and aspiration for gender justice with mythology and spirituality”.

“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,” Rahman said at the ceremony.

An additional $20,000 (€18,000) 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). 

Though the prize has also played a key role in platforming Ukrainian artists on a global stage (Ukrainian artist Veronika Hapchenko and Dana Kavelina were shortlisted this year, for example), Björn Geldhof, Artistic Director of the PinchukArtCentre,  believes the prize to be a powerful statement of openness and exchange beyond championing Ukrainian creativity.

“Now, working in times that are extremely challenging, the prize is also a show of strength and resilience… It shows that no matter what, Ukraine remains a country that is open to the world and remains engaged with topics and issues that concern others,” he says.

Those “challenging times” have been felt in the run-up to the exhibition, with the opening postponed from August due to power shortages in Kyiv owing to attacks on Ukraine's energy grid.

The jury included Cecilia Alemani, Curator of the 59th Venice Biennale; Alicia Knock, Curator, Head of the Contemporary Creation and Prospective Department at Paris’s Centre Pompidou; and art critic and curator Hou Hanru, former Artistic Director of MAXXI in Rome

Previous winners include: Angolan artist Nastio Mosquito who has since had solo shows at Fondazione Prada Milan and MoMa New York; Brazilian artist Cinthia Marcelle whose solo exhibitions have been shown at MoMa PS1; and Aziz Hazara whose work was commissioned for the 58th Carnegie International.

The Future Generation Art Prize exhibition runs until 19 January 2025 at the PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv, Ukraine.