Future Generation Art Prize Extends Applications Until 19 July

Applications for the eighth Future Generation Art Prize, one of the world’s most prominent open-call awards for emerging artists, have been extended until 19 July. Established by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and the PinchukArtCentre in 2009, the biennial prize has built an international reputation for identifying artists early in their careers and supporting them as they move on to the global stage.

Open to artists aged 35 or younger, working in any medium, anywhere in the world, each edition of the prize has attracted thousands of submissions, with a selection committee nominating 20 artists for a shortlist, who will be joined by the winner of the parallel PinchukArtCentre Prize. The 21 nominees are commissioned to produce new works for a major exhibition at the PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv, with the winner receiving a $100,000 USD award, with additional special cash prizes supporting the artistic development of up to five individuals.

 In the nearly two decades during which the prize has been running, alumni have gone on to represent countries at the Venice Biennale, receive Turner Prize nominations and stage major museum exhibitions around the world. The list includes Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, recognised for her psychologically charged portraits, and Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova, whose sculptures and installations made from construction materials directly respond to war and social transformation. Other winners who later went to represent national pavilions at Venice include Cinthia Marcelle and Dineo Seshee Bopape.

“The biennial prize has built an international reputation for identifying artists early in their careers”

The experience of Bangladeshi artist Ashfika Rahman, winner of the most recent edition, reflects the prize’s longer-term impact. This year, her work Than Para—No Land Without Us (2025), comprising 4,849 Hindu temple bells, is featured in Still Joy—From Ukraine into the World, organised by the PinchukArtCentre as a collateral event of the Venice Biennale. Addressing the displacement of Indigenous communities in a conflict-affected border region of Bangladesh, the installation is presented alongside works by globally acclaimed artists including Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller and Julian Charrière.

For Rahman, the prize offered more than professional recognition. “Receiving the prize brought a profound sense of global visibility, along with an equally important sense of responsibility—to remain attentive, critical, and engaged, and to position my practice with an awareness of the histories we are part of and the futures we are shaping,” she said.

The shortlist for the Eighth Future Generation Art Prize will be announced in September, with winners to be named in spring 2027. —[O]