Next stop: Wilhelm Wagenfeld Haus
From ‘FINAL FINAL’ to ‘ID Select’
This year, it is not only the final-year students of Fine Art who will be given a special platform: from 24 April 2026, the exhibition “ID Select” will be presented at the Wilhelm Wagenfeld Haus as part of a further museum collaboration. On display will be the final-year projects from the Integrated Design (ID) course at the University of the Arts Bremen that have been nominated for the Frese Design Prize. The prize, worth 12,000 euros, has been awarded annually since 2014 to promote emerging design talent in the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Nominated for the 2026 Frese Design Prize are 16 Bachelor’s and Master’s graduates, who were selected by an initial jury during the recent University Days as part of the “FINAL FINAL” exhibition presented there. A new development is that the Frese Design Prize, one of the most highly endowed university prizes in Germany, is being made accessible to the public in a museum context for the first time.
With “ID Select”, the Wilhelm Wagenfeld Haus present a broad spectrum of artistic media: from photography, video, graphics, illustration, installation, fashion and performance to product design and sculpture. The exhibition offers insights into individual creative approaches whilst bringing the diversity of contemporary design approaches to life.
On the subject of building culture alone, visitors can expect to see several works: a wind turbine converted into a tiny house, a film documentary on the European phenomenon of demolishing buildings that are still in working order, and a ‘walk-in’ Bremen bunker archive. Issues of archiving and documentation also feature in various forms within individual works: for instance, an impressive attempt is made to archive the sheer number and variety of one’s own possessions, whilst an artistically explored material archive of ceramic objects reveals different firing times and glazing techniques.
Other works engage with existential or sensory experiences: stylishly designed urns combine the work of mourning with sculptural form, lending the act of mourning a new three-dimensional dimension. Elsewhere, art is made tangible through scent. The senses of sight and smell intertwine, allowing abstract photographs to be experienced olfactorily and playfully shifting the boundaries of perception.
A collaboration between the University of the Arts Bremen and the Wilhelm Wagenfeld House.
The project is funded by the Petra and Dieter Frese Foundation.
The nominees
The nominees for this year’s Frese Design Prize are: Frederik Adelmann, Maja Bäumker, Luci Lee Biehler, Paula Britt, Leon Butt, Leontien Kay, Sarah Paulina Keilbach, Yang Liu, Hannah Malina Lowitz, Isabel Moraes Duzat, Claudia Sofia Pesantes Cardoso, Lena Porath, Kjell Reimers, Dana Salih, Jannes Schmidt and Söhnke Vetter.
Programm
Frese Design Award Ceremony:
Tuesday, 5 May 2026, 6.00 pm
Programme as part of the Long Night of Museums:
30 May 2026, 6.00 pm–midnight, short guided tours every hour (20 minutes each; last tour at 11.00 pm)
Public guided tours:
every Tuesday at 6.00 pm
Opening hours
Tuesday: 3pm–9pm
Wednesday till Sunday: 10am–6pm
(during exhibition periods only)