In 2024, we awarded the second Antwerp Art Graduation Prize. With this prize, Antwerp Art seeks to support the development of young artists not yet associated with any organisation. Every year, two students with a master’s degree in fine arts are selected based on their graduation projects: one from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp (KASKA) and one from Sint Lucas Antwerp (SLA). The Graduation Prize consists of a cash prize and an exhibition of new work during Antwerp Art Weekend.

The 2024 laureates that will be exhibiting their work are Juli Bierich (KASKA) and Julia Tröscher (SLA). Stay tuned, because we will announce more details on their presentations during the Antwerp Art Weekend (29.05-01.05.2025) soon!

The performance ‘Go Big or Go Home’ was created by artist Juli Bierich in collaboration with choreographer Emma Mann. Developed through research into games and play, the work is a 20-minute bout that investigates the effects of competition, team identities and uniformity on group dynamics.

‘Go Big or Go Home’ connects the distinct visual clues of mass sporting events like American football, with the protective symbolism and imagery of nests and eggs, both functioning as incubators in their own right. Although they perform these functions in a very different way, both the nest and the sports arena are spaces at the nexus of our communities.

The players (or performers) follow a set of rules and guidelines, instead of following a strict choreography, thus creating a restricted but ultimately uncontrollable structure where these rules can be tested, underlining ‘Go Big or Go Home’ as an experiment and investigation into the dynamics and hierarchies of a group.

Music: Quirin Brunhuber / Photography: Tobias Wendt, Paul Müller / Performers: Myrthe van de Langkruis, Emilia Schupp, Aurélie Bayad, Tim Bogaerts, Luka Vynnychok, Emma Mann.

Juli Bierich is a German-Japanese artist based in Antwerp. Her artistic performances explore the "In between“ of public and personal spaces, using various mediums, with a focus on wearable pieces. The body is serving as a necessary component to her work and can be regarded as a tool, that leaves and is also left with, traces of these life actions, functioning as a documentary canvas.

In Julia Tröscher’s film installation ‘There was a Never, there was Yes and Yes/Emotion’, we follow the journey of a ceramic fish, traveling through different hands, places, and times. Images of fish, phones, mothers, spaceships, and the sea are woven through the film’s visual narrative, while a poem by the artist forms its literal narrative.

Next to the film, the installation consists of a bench that builds a bridge between both viewer and film, connecting the audience to its words and imagery. Formally, it resembles the benches that are placed along the river in Mainz, where the work was first exhibited. Decorated with symbols featured in both the film and poem, its status comes into question: does it position itself as a cultural memorial or to exist as a quieter element of public architecture.

Both elements to reflect on the private and broader relations we foster with our surroundings, with the figure of a fish human standing as a metaphor for the genealogy of the universe, as well as that of the artist.

Julia Tröscher is an Austrian artist based in Antwerp. Through text, video, and sculpture she explores post-anthropocentric ecology and alternative knowledge systems through her practice. Considering life and non-life, her work focusses on entanglement, reconfiguration, and care, blurring the boundaries between art, environment, and audience interaction.

Antwerp Art would like to thank the following spaces for supporting the 2024 Antwerp Art Graduation Prize:

Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Base-Alpha Gallery, Coppejans Gallery, de boer, De Wael 15, De Zwarte Panter, DEUSS Gallery, Eva Steynen Gallery, Frans Masereel Centrum, IBASHO, KETELEER GALLERY, MORPHO, Newchild, Pizza Gallery, Schönfeld Projects, Shoobil Gallery, Tim Van Laere Gallery and TICK TACK.