The Aesthetica Art Prize 2026 has announced its winners, alongside the official opening of its landmark 20th anniversary exhibition at York Art Gallery. This year’s winners are Felipe Castelblanco, who received the Main Prize, and DIVA, for the Emerging Prize. The two were decided by a panel of jurors from V&A, The Photographers’ Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, The Whitworth and the Royal Academy of Arts, among others. The awardees, selected from a truly impressive shortlist of 20 artists, embody the Prize’s mission over the past two decades, presenting contemporary art as a catalyst for reflection, resistance and resilience at a moment of immense global uncertainty and increasing political upheaval.
Castelblanco’s powerful two-channel video, Tunda: A Quantic Plant and the Devil’s Breath (2025) explores the entangled histories of plants and colonial extraction. Viewers see an Indigenous man thrust from the Colombian Amazon to the Swiss Alps, drifting between vision and reality. Landing in a remote museum’s herbarium, he encounters botanical artifacts relating to the Brugmansia plant. This plant is a powerful teacher for Kamnënstá Indigenous healers in Colombia’s Andean-Amazon region. Among these communities, it is believed to possess the ability to cross boundaries of time and space.
Emerging Prize winner DIVA’s Memoria 2020: When Memories Are No Longer Enough (2025) reflects on the artist’s identity as a Black French woman in New Orleans through the lens of another diasporic experience: a Mardi Gras Indian Queen. The Mardi Gras Indian tradition is believed to originate from encounters between Native and Black communities in the late 19th century. The Queen’s voice introduces the traditions and history of this African American cultural practice, which is rooted in community resilience and resistance. The work explores how artistic archives, cultural memory, and testimony shape belonging.
Both Castelblanco and DIVA are featured in the Aesthetica Art Prize Exhibition 2026, States of Becoming, on display at York Art Gallery until November. The exhibition brings together 20 shortlisted artists, representing an impressive cross-section of contemporary practice. Together, they confront the biggest issues facing humanity today, from the advancement of technology, the existential realities of climate change, the deep scars of colonialism and the ongoing fight for gender equality and racial justice. In photography, Kazuaki Koseki captures the flashes of the Himebotaru, fireflies native to the Japanese forest of Yamagata, whilst Jarett Murphy documents surreal, nocturnal landscapes, both shaped by and resistant to human intervention. Meanwhile, Claudia Behrensen places figures in the landscape to ask how humanity’s mistreatment of the environment has caused irreversible damage. Hope Strickland’s film A river holds a perfect memory uses water to consider how themes of industrialisation, migration, memory and exploitation are linked in unexpected ways. Yasuaki Matsuura’s work uses the camera to explore how memory is shaped by the systems we use in everyday life.
Cherie Federico, Director of Aesthetica and Curator of The Prize, says: “This year marks a significant milestone as we celebrate 20 years of the Aesthetica Art Prize. Over the past two decades, we’ve had the privilege of working with thousands of artists whose practices have challenged perspectives, sparked dialogue and reflected the complexities of our changing world. The Prize has grown into an international platform for contemporary art, creating opportunities for artists at pivotal stages in their careers and connecting their work with new audiences. This year’s winners demonstrate the power of art to deepen our understanding of history, identity, ecology and collective memory. Their work invites audiences to engage with urgent questions, creating space for reflection, dialogue and new ways of seeing.”
Castelblanco and DIVA join Aesthetica’s talented art prize alumni, including Baff Akoto, Jenn Nkiru, Larry Achiampong and Maryam Tafakory, who continue to demonstrate excellence around the world. Their work has been shown at major international institutions, including Centre Pompidou, Foam Amsterdam, MOMA PS1, Tate Modern and V&A. These trailblazing artists have won, or been nominated for, awards such as the Jarman Award, John Moore’s Painting Prize, Sony World Photography Awards and Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize. They have also achieved publication in Frieze, Art Review, The Guardian, The New York Times and Vice.
The Aesthetica Art Prize 2026: States of Becoming is at York Art Gallery until 15 November: yorkartgallery.org.uk
Words: Emma Jacob
Image Credits:
1. Felipe Castelblanco, Tunda: A Quantic Plant and the Devil’s Breath (2025).
2. Film Still. Felipe Castelblanco, Tunda: A Quantic Plant and the Devil’s Breath (2025).
3. Felipe Castelblanco. Artist Insight.
4. Film still. DIVA, Memoria 2020: When Memories Are No Longer Enough (2025).
5. DIVA, Memoria 2020: When Memories Are No Longer Enough (2025).
6. Film Still. Felipe Castelblanco, Tunda: A Quantic Plant and the Devil’s Breath (2025).
