This autumn, exhibition space C/O Berlin brings together works by Stelios Kallinikou and Susanne Kriemann, recipients of the After Nature Ulrike Crespo Photography Prize 2026. Every year, the award recognises two environmentally conscious lens-based artists, each taking away a €40,000 cash prize alongside an exhibition and accompanying publication. Established in 2024, the initiative reflects the growing urgency of artistic responses to the climate crisis. Its previous winners include image-makers from around the world, including Lisa Barnard, Isadora Romero, Laura Huertas Millán and Sarker Protick.
This year, the Prize presents Kallinikou’s (b. 1985) Cliffs Among Dreams, a collection of photographs, films and sculptural assemblages which explore the Akrotiri peninsula in southern Cyprus. This is a place where ecological diversity and military infrastructure are intertwined. Akrotiri is a Sovereign Base Area, which has remained under British sovereignty since Cyprus gained independence in 1960. It is home to both a Royal Air Force base and the island’s largest natural inland body of water. The Akrotiri Salt Lake is a major wetland and stopover for migratory birds. As such, Kallinikou’s compositions are full of contradictions: flamingos rest whilst antennas and radar systems soar into the air. Elsewhere, other wildlife, insects and rock formations intersect with military infrastructure, fences and air traffic. Kallinikou also turns his attention to the cliffs of Aetokremnos, one of Cyprus’s most important archaeological sites. The show raises geopolitical questions whilst touching on themes of migration, belonging and extinction, all set against the backdrop of an island which has been divided since Turkey invaded the north in 1974.
Kriemann (b. 1972), meanwhile, showcases Im Fieber der Sonne flattern Schmetterlinge im Bauch (In the Sun’s Fever Flutter Butterflies in the Stomach), which examines remnants of the industrial era and atomic age. The German artist’s long-standing engagement with radioactivity was initially motivated by the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, which has remained a recurring motif in her research. Now, her focus is on former uranium extraction sites in Saxony, Thuringia and the Limousin region in France – locations where radiation is present in architecture, flora and the soil. C/O Berlin presents Kriemann’s body of work Pechblende (Pitchblende), which employs a cameraless image-making process known as autoradiography, where radioactive substances directly expose photographic film to create an image. It also foregrounds her latest series, Pechblende (Fever), which incorporates samples of uranium-bearing ore and dried plant specimens, collected from former mining sites that have since been environmentally remediated. Other pieces on display were made by burying unexposed sheet film in a reclaimed mine waste heap near Dresden. Throughout, Kriemann’s experimental methodology brings traces to light that would otherwise go unseen.
Both Kallinikou and Kriemann take us to places where human activity has had a profound impact on ecosystems. They transport audiences to regions under military control, through contaminated landscapes and even deep into the soil itself. These are artists who make the invisible visible: demonstrating the enduring power of the photographic image to reveal truths that cannot always be seen with the naked eye.
After Nature Prize 26 is at C/O Berlin from 12 September – 20 January 2027.
Words: Eleanor Sutherland
Image Credits:
1. Dreamers bay, 2026. © Stelios Kallinikou.
2. Gate, 2026. © Stelios Kallinikou.
3. Pechblende (Fever), 2026, sheet film, ribwort plan- tain, pitchblende. Susanne Kriemann © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2026.
4. Pechblende (Fever), 2026, sheet film, floorboard nails, pitchblende 06 Lupin, Fougère, Genêt, 2026, offset print, soot, silk paper. Susanne Kriemann © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2026.
5. Pechblende (Fever), 2026, sheet film, gamma radiation. Susanne Kriemann © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2026.
