2025 Karin Hollweg-Prize awarded to Yuliya Tsviatkova

The work of prizewinner Yuliya Tsviatkova is part of the exhibition 
what is that invisible thing your arm is resting on by Meisterschüler:innen of the HfK Bremen, which will be on view at the Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst from 28 June to 10 August 2025.

Yuliya Tsviatkova, born in Belarus in 1993, currently lives and works in Bremen. In 2015, she obtained her diploma in Biology from Mogilev State University A.A. Kuleshov (Belarus). She subsequently began a Master's degree in Marine Biology at the University of Bremen, before switching to the Fine Arts programme at the University of the Arts Bremen in 2018. In 2024, she received her diploma in the class of Prof. Dr Rosa Barba, which was later taken over by James Richards. She also completed her Meisterschüler:innen programme under his supervision.

Yuliya Tsviatkova has a background in microbiology and views her artistic practice as a space where scientific curiosity meets poetic storytelling. Her video-based work explores themes such as exile, environmental violence, and the intertwining of human and non-human life—told through non-linear narratives and an immersive visual language. The interplay of memory, myth, and landscape is often central to her work. Woods regularly appear as an emblem for refuge and resistance. In her artistic practice, Yuliya reflects on how political structures shape emotional, ecological, and existential realities, creating spaces for overlooked connections and silenced histories.

Her artistic participations include, among others: Red Like the Sea (2023) at Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin; Performative Evening (2023) at Kunstverein Hannover; and the group exhibition Monument to a Phantom Limb (2022) at Galerie La Box in Bourges, France.

Her video installation "In the animal's skin" impressively combines politics with poetry and won over the jury with a subtle composition and the great precision in the interplay of images, sounds, and texts. The work addresses the fence erected by Poland along the border with Belarus. It is intended to block migrants from reaching Europe and runs right through the Białowieża Forest. The border fence also represents a barrier to all other forms of life and the artist interweaves this fact with a subliminally told personal story. Over the running time of 14 minutes, every sequence in the video, no matter how brief, is resolved, creating a great sense of tension despite the short duration of the work. The artist placed a schematic representation of the old growth forest on the floor beneath the projection screen. The fence stands out in it and the video depicts the monster that has been erected there without drama.

Yuliya Tsviatkova
In the animal's skin, 2025
Video, 14:10 min.

• Wolfgang Hainke (Artist, Bremen)
• Dr. Andreas Kreul (Karin and Uwe Hollweg Foundation)
• Prof. Dr. Christoph Grunenberg (Director Kunsthalle Bremen)
• Ingo Clauß  (Curator Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst)
• Dr. Arie Hartog (Director Gerhard Marcks Haus)
• Ingmar Lähnemann (Head Städtische Galerie Bremen)
• Dr. Frank Schmidt (Director Museen Böttcherstraße)
• Dr. Matilda Felix (Head Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst)
• Marie Oucherif (Artistic Director Künstler:innenhaus Bremen)
  
  Assessor
• David Bartusch, Chairman of the Friends of the University of the Arts Bremen e. V.
• Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Professor at the University of the Arts Bremen

With the Karin Hollweg Prize, the Karin and Uwe Hollweg Foundation has been supporting master students at the University of the Arts Bremen (HfK) since 2007 (this year it was secured for a further five years and thus until at least 2028). The prize is awarded annually in connection with the exhibition of the HfK's master students, which rotates between different exhibition venues. It is one of the most highly endowed sponsorship awards of all art academies in Germany. Each year, a jury from outside the university, made up of art experts from Bremen and the surrounding area, decides on the award. The prize is worth 18,000 euros, half of which is paid out directly to the winner as prize money, while the second half is reserved for the realisation of a solo exhibition. A further 2,000 euros will be made available to the exhibiting institution of the master student exhibition. This brings the total funding to 20,000 euros per year.

Previous award winners: Dilettantin Produktionsbüro (Anneli Käsmayr and Jenny Kropp together with Claudia Heidorn, Anna Jandt and Alberta Niemann) (2007), Verena Johanna Müller (2008), Christian Haake (2009), Nicolai Schorr (2010), Noriko Yamamoto (2011), Janis E. Müller (2012), Franziska Keller (2013), Z. Schmidt (2014), Tobias Heine (2015), Claudia Piepenbrock (2016), Felix Dreesen (2017), Zhe Wang (2018), Mattia Bonafini and Luisa Eugeni (2019), Kate Andrews (2020), Shirin Mohammad (2021), Martin Reichmann (2022), Hannah Wolf (2023).

The annual exhibitions of the Meisterschüler:innen provide a multifaceted insight into the quality and diversity of contemporary art production in Bremen. This year, 12 artists are participating, showing exclusively new pieces and adding up to a multidimensional selection of time-based artworks and installations that muster different media. Some works combine sculpture with sound and film elements. Other works utilise corporeal-biographical forms in sculpture or explore digital worlds and social themes such as urban melancholy and social alienation across media. The exhibition approaches spatial dimensions and society not as mere backdrops, but as active sites for reflection on perception and stability in life. This year's exhibition takes place at the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art.

what is that invisible thing your arm is resting on was curated by Julian Lautenbach.

Artists of the exhibition: Vafa Aminikia, Noelle Millicent BuAbbud, Reika Hattori, Yuxiao Huang, Joya Bahkyi, Minjeong Park, Leon Sahiti, Caroline Antonia Schlingemann, Yuliya Tsviatkova, Abdulghaffar Tammaa, Florian Witt, Guibok Yang

A co-operation between the University of the Arts Bremen and Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst

Funded by