In 2025, we awarded the third 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 2025 laureates that will be exhibiting their work are Charlotte Daniëlse (KASKA) and Marta Meers (SLA). Stay tuned, because we will announce more details on their presentations during the Antwerp Art Weekend 2026 soon!

In ‘Do re mi we swim (orchestra)’, Charlotte Daniëlse explores how sound, sculpture, and surroundings activate one another, and how visitors can connect both with the works and with each other. At the heart of the installation are ceramic, fish-like instruments that together form an orchestra. Placed in front of a large photo-collage backdrop, the instruments function as both an ensemble and as individual voices, each producing a distinct tone. Foot pumps invite visitors to play them, creating a collective sound experience. The resulting soundscape, composed of the instruments’ tones, binds the space together, inviting a sense of connection, calm, and shared perception. The work bridges the gap between personal experience and communal interaction.

Charlotte Daniëlse is a Dutch artist based in Ghent. Her practice spans sculpture, (moving) image, site-specific installations, and sound. Embracing imperfection, she lets process shape form, creating an intuitive visual lexicon. Through her subjective approach, she builds spaces where matter and emotion intertwine, mediating between personal perception and shared experience. Rooted in ecological awareness, her work reflects on how we position ourselves within today’s environment and explores alternative narratives of connection. 

'Projection for a Spoiled Soil (P.F.A.S.)' is an immersive video installation, exploring the tension between ecological care and industrial toxicity through a deeply personal lens. Rooted in the PFAS pollution scandal in Antwerp. The work unfolds through a short documentary projected on a homegrown living mycelium screen, accompanied by a photographic series and fungal test bricks. Developed in collaboration with her grandparents, scientists, journalists, fungi, and the soil itself, this work blends family memory, scientific research, and ecological urgency; while reflecting on care, contamination, and the resilience of life beneath our feet. 

Marta Meers is a Belgian visual artist whose work grows between film, installation, and ecological research. Her practice began with collaborative short documentaries and evolved into material experiments with fungi and mycelium, unfolding a broader investigation into soil, care, and contamination. She holds an MA in Socio-Political Visual Arts from Sint Lucas Antwerp and is the co-founder of Colectiva Maleza, an ecofeminist art collective cultivating artistic and ecological resistance through site-specific interventions, community gardens, and collective cinema. Through these encounters, she explores how personal and political histories intertwine, creating spaces where storytelling, remediation, and critical reflection meet. Her work invites viewers to question structures of privilege and power while opening spaces for collective thought and situated awareness.