art prize
The art prize aims to highlight the vitality and diversity of contemporary ceramic practice while supporting young contemporary creators.
The call for artists is open to art students and/or young artists living in Europe who are not represented by a gallery, with no age limit. It is open to artists with less than 10 years' practice and research in the field of ceramics.
The call for applications for the 2026 edition is now closed.
From all the applications, ten artists are selected and presented in an exhibition organized by Jean-Marc Dimanche during ceramic brussels. Each artist showcases a selection of their works.
Designed to be accessible and visible to everyone, the exhibition is located at the entrance and is free for the public to explore.
Lorie Ballage holds an MFA from the Bergen Academy of Fine Arts and has exhibited extensively in Europe, including solo exhibitions at Pragovka Gallery (Prague, CZ), Norsk Billedhoggerforening (Oslo, NO), The Wrong House (Kortrijk, BE), and Buskerud Kunstsenter (Drammen, NO).
Her work lies at the intersection of ceramic sculpture and immersive installation. Her practice explores water as both material and metaphor, combining hand-formed ceramics with recycled materials, sound, and scenographic narration to create environments that blur the boundary between the familiar and the strange. Lorie Ballage seeks to reveal the poetic and political potential of failure, absurdity and the unused, making ceramics not only a material for fabrication, but a tool for critical questioning.
Uriel Caspi earned a BFA in ceramics from the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem, followed by an MFA from Alfred University in New York. Since completing his studies, he has exhibited in museums, galleries and art fairs in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, Israel, Taiwan and Japan.
Uriel Caspi has worked internationally as a university researcher and artist in residence, notably at the Archie Bray Foundation (Montana), the Yingge Ceramics Museum (Taiwan), the EKWC (Netherlands), Cercco–HEAD Geneva (Switzerland), Höchster Porzellan Manufaktur (Germany), and the Northern Clay Centre (Minnesota), among others. His awards include the Hecht Award for Emerging Artist (2019), the Artist Grant (2023), and the McKnight Fellowship (2024).
Danny Cremers works with hand-crafted porcelain. Trained in fashion design at Central Saint Martins, he explores classic forms through subtle imbalances and imperfections. His vases carry a silent tension between freedom and control, with textured surfaces and loosely constructed forms. Attracted by the energy of sketching — open, intuitive, without concern for finality — he seeks to capture this same immediacy in each of his finished pieces.
Kira Fröse is a visual artist specialising in sculptures and installations made from glass, ceramics, plaster and found objects. In 2017, she obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts (sculpture) from the AKI ArtEZ Academy in Enschede, the Netherlands.
From 2018 to 2022, Kira lived and worked as an artist in Rotterdam (Netherlands). In addition to her own artistic practice, she also assisted other artists in their studios, including Anne Wenzel, Maaike Kramer and Stephan Marienfeld. Kira Fröse's works are part of several Dutch art collections, including those of the Museum LAM (Lisse), the Museum Jan Cunen (Oss) and the Stichting Kunst & Historisch Bezit A.S.R. & Aegon.
Ninon graduated from the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Montpellier in 2017 and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 2021. She has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions and has completed several research and creative residencies. "Ninon Hivert, like an archaeologist, captures the anonymous, the mundane, and gleans the urban. Her ceramics are imprints, plastic translations of familiar and generic forms: clothing, accessories, everyday objects, always close to the body.
She uses clay for its mimetic potential, modelling reality by recreating it, repeating it, in temporalities similar to those of painting and photography, where revelation follows a period of drying and setting. Her practice is one of transcription, in series, but this time resolutely manual: from one object to another, from one material to another, from touch to sight, from memory to gesture. Mimicry is not so much in the final appearance as in the work in progress that is allowed to emerge. Andréanne Béguin.
Santiago Insignares-Martínez's artistic career began in Bogotá and took him to Rome and then San Francisco. Ceramics became his main focus after he moved to Germany, where he studied under Professor Isa Melsheimer at the Muthesius Kunsthochschule. This period earned him institutional exhibitions and participation in the 12th Gyeonggi International Ceramic Art Biennale in 2024.
Santiago draws inspiration from both ancient and modern ruins to create sculptures that offer a critical reflection on systems in crisis. Through playful appropriations and reconstructions, he assembles colourful ceramic structures that explore the relationship between architecture and identity, while evoking nostalgia for childhood building games and the journey to adulthood.
Faye Papargyropoulou is a ceramic artist and designer based in Athens. In 1992, she began studying art and design, thanks to a scholarship in industrial design. After twenty years as creative director at major advertising agencies, she founded her own agency, ABOUT: CREATIVE AGENCY.
In 2020, she took a new step in her creative journey by opening her own ceramics studio, CERAMIC 47. Based in Athens, this personal space for artistic expression allows her to create unique pieces that highlight the beauty of imperfection and challenge traditional notions of form and functionality. Through her work, she combines the past and the present, reflecting a deep appreciation for art, nature and contemporary design.
Marie Pic graduated with a DNSEP in art, specialising in ceramics, from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art et de Design in Limoges in 2021. A resident of the CAP Saint-Fons workshops since 2024, she explores the notions of passage and threshold through sculptural forms that combine architecture and the plant world. Bas-relief doors and gates, inspired by Art Nouveau or 17th-century jewellery, combine formal rigour with organic motifs, where ornamentation becomes structure.
Angelika Stefaniak is a visual artist born in 1997 in Jawor, Poland. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław (Master's degree in sculpture, 2024). Her practice combines ceramics and textiles, rooted in an intuitive process, a childlike perception and dreamlike distortion.
Inspired by psychology, anthropology and biomorphism, she seeks beauty in the grotesque, creating sensitive and tactile forms that oscillate between sculpture and object. Winner of the OP_YOUNG 2024 programme and recipient of a grant from the Polish Ministry of Culture, she has exhibited her work at OP ENHEIM, Galeria Miejska in Wrocław, Apteka Sztuki in Warsaw, as well as at international events in Łódź and Olomouc.
Born in China and educated in Beijing and Berlin, Walter Yu studied German literature at Beijing Foreign Studies University before obtaining the title of Meisterschüler at the Berlin University of the Arts.
His work has been exhibited throughout China and Europe and has won several awards. Yu explores the poetic intersection between classical East Asian aesthetics and contemporary visual storytelling. With a background in painting, Yu extends his practice to ceramics and sculpture, creating forms that resonate with both scroll painting and architectural space. His ever-evolving glazing techniques seek to establish a dialogue between clay and surface, between the tactile and the pictorial, evoking a pictorial sensibility that challenges the boundaries between mediums.
A jury of renowned professionals is in charge of selecting the laureates.
↘ 2026
After creating and directing the design agency V.I.T.R.I.O.L. for 20 years, he founded in 2008, with Florence Guillier-Bernard, Maison Parisienne, a traveling gallery dedicated to French crafts, in the framework of which he organised more than fifty exhibitions in various European capitals.
At the beginning of 2016, he was called as advisor to H.R.H. the Grand Duchess Heiress of Luxembourg, and worked with her on the implementation of the biennial De Mains De Maîtres, of which he is now general commissioner.
In parallel, he directed, between March 2019, the date of its opening in Brussels, and June 2022, ELEVEN STEENS, a private space dedicated to Art and Matter, open to all areas of creation, be it the plastic arts, design, crafts, architecture or fashion.
An independent curator, he supports numerous exhibitions in the fields of contemporary craft and contemporary art in France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and is the co-founder of the first art fair dedicated to contemporary ceramics, ceramic brussels.
Wendy Gers is an award-winning Franco-South African curator, researcher and consultant based in the Netherlands. She is Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics and a Senior Researcher at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, the Netherlands. In Autumn 2024 she was the Theodore Randall International Chair of Art History at Alfred University, New York.
Wendy has taught and directed major exhibitions in Europe, America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Among these exhibitions are 2 Biennales, each featuring over 60 artists, and visited by over 1 million people. She is the author of numerous catalogues, book chapters and scholarly articles, including the landmark monograph on southern African potteries, Scorched Earth (2016). Wendy has delivered over 80 public lectures and keynote addresses in 20 countries and has served on various juries and boards.
Gers is the recipient of a PhD from the University of Sunderland; MA in History of Art (cum laude); Advanced University Diploma in Information Studies and a BA from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. She completed her Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa. Her research interests include sustainability, decolonisation, and curatorial studies.
Jean-Charles Hameau is Director of the Musée national Adrien Dubouché in Limoges. He has worked at the Musée national Adrien Dubouché as a heritage curator since 2014 and then as head of the collections department since 2020.
A specialist in modern and contemporary art, he has notably overseen the new hanging of the museum room dedicated to contemporary ceramics (2018) and curated exhibitions such as INC(L)ASSABLE, Les 30 ans du CRAFT Limoges: créations contemporaines (2023), Matière lente, Martin Szekely (2022), Formes vivantes (2019) and Avant, ici, Maintenant, l'expérience Non Sans Raison (2015).
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Lionel Jadot, born and based in Brussels, is an interior architect, artist, designer, filmmaker, and adventurer, often all at once.
His work merges disciplines with an alchemical touch, transforming discarded materials into extraordinary creations. “I don’t throw anything, I pick up. I don’t have a green thumb, I try cuttings, unnatural marriages.” Jadot combines past and future, seamlessly weaving wood into metal, mineral into vegetal, and old into new. He builds organic, energy-generating forms that bridge eras and challenge the norm.
His work is a dialogue between time and space, blending retro-futurism, gothic comics, and the cinematic worlds of Moebius, Jodorowski, and Blade Runner. Every project is a fusion of history, innovation, and inspiration. Whether reimagining architecture or creating mutant objects, Jadot’s creations invite you into a universe of subtle, quirky worlds bordering on reality.
For Jadot, design is not just about form; it's about connection. “I take care of the connection between two materials.” He listens to the world around him, allowing its ineffable feelings to guide his work. Through Zaventem Ateliers and his design philosophy, he crafts spaces and objects that grow, adapt, and evolve, always striving to transform the ordinary into something extraordinary.
As an art historian trained at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Maral Kekejian has been weaving a singular trajectory between creation, thought and cultural action for over two decades.
Currently artistic director of Europalia España 25-26 in Brussels, she was recently at the heart of the cultural programme for the Spanish Presidency of the European Union (2022-2024). Curator of the Spanish representation at the Prague Quadrennial 2023, she explores the languages of the stage from both the margins and the institutions. As a lecturer on the Master's in Cultural Management at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, she shares her expertise with new generations.
A scholarship holder at the Real Academia de España in Rome in 2021, that same year she will be programming the Picnic Sessions at CA2M. She is an active contributor to committed projects such as "Llanes. Paisajes en folixa", and has been a member of the Performing Arts Council at the Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música (INAEM).
In Madrid, she has directed the Veranos de la Villa (2016-2019), the Cabalgata de Reyes (2015-2016), and hosted La Casa Encendida for almost ten years. Her career, which spans production, curating and transmission, provides a living map of contemporary creation in Spain and beyond.
In addition to the jury prize, institutional partners will award additional prizes to the winners.
The jury of the ceramic brussels art prize 2026 will elect and announce one artist among the 10 laureates presented in the group show on the first public day of the fair.
The artist will be given the chance to present his/her/their work in a solo show during the 2027 edition of ceramic brussels.
↘ members of the 2026 ceramic brussels art prize jury
Léonore Chastagner was the winner of the Jury Prize 2025.
The elected laureate will have the benefit of a monograph on his work, supported by the French Embassy in Brussels and produced in collaboration with the young publishing house R.S.V.P.
With this support, the artist has an important tool for presenting and disseminating his work.
Raphaël Emine was the winner of the Ambassade de France en Belgique (fr) award 2025.
The Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles/Paris, also known as Le Vaisseau, is an artistic and cultural Alien-institution — a reference catalyst for French-speaking Belgian contemporary creation and its artistic and cultural ecosystem.
Through its resolutely cross-disciplinary programme, deployed both In Situ and Off-Site, the Centre’s mission is to disseminate and promote the work of artists established in the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles in dialogue with international scenes. It supports both emerging and established practices, and helps stimulate co-productions and international partnerships.
The artist awarded the Centre Prize will benefit from the presentation of one of their works within a group exhibition produced by the Centre in the 2027 Season.
Luna-Isola Bersanetti was the winner of the Centre Wallonie Bruxelles-Paris (fr) award 2025.
A museum and space for art and creation dedicated to ceramics, Keramis was built on the site of the old Boch faience factory in La Louvière. Its bold, contemporary architecture incorporates an old listed building that contains three giant bottle kilns, the last of their kind in Belgium.
The artist will benefit from a 30-day residency in July 2026 at the Keramis residence. He/she will receive €2,000 and a budget of € 500 for kiln hire (energy costs). He/she will benefit from a research residency (with no promise of restitution or publication) and will be able to order material from the museum (order, travel expenses and costs of works produced at the artist's expense).
Pia Mougeot was the winner of the Keramis (be) residency 2025.
Located in Yixing, the birthplace of Chinese purple clay, the Creative & Cultural Ceramic Avenue (CCCA) is a center dedicated to ceramic creation and the preservation of traditional craftsmanship. In collaboration with the International Academy of Ceramics, it offers artists a space for research and experimentation within a unique cultural heritage.
Two artists are hosted for a 3-month residency in 2026, with free accommodation, studio access, materials, and firings. Each resident receives a grant of 15,000 RMB as well as a one-way flight ticket. A selection of the works produced may be presented or added to the collection of the UCCA Clay Museum. The residency also includes artistic support and opportunities to exchange with ceramic professionals and craftspeople.
Asya Marakulina was the winner of the YXCCCA (cn) residency 2025.
Béatrice Guilleman was the winner the YXCCCA (cn) residency 2025.
The laureate will be awarded a three-week residency in Latvia, developed in partnership with the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Museum. Taking place between April and May (26 April–7 May 2026 or in 2027, to be agreed with the artist), the residency includes accommodation, meals and materials.
It will conclude with an exhibition at the Rothko Museum, offering the artist a unique opportunity for international visibility.
The works of the 10 laureates will be presented as part of a group show curated by Jean-Marc Dimanche and scenographed by A S C P Studio.
On the occasion of the art prize, MAD Brussels (Center for Fashion & Design), Action et Service (A+S), and ceramic brussels launched an open call for a Brussels-based designer or studio to imagine a new scenography that would highlight the laureates’ works with sensitivity and clarity.
The studio selected for the third edition of ceramic brussels is A S C P Studio.
A S C P is a creative studio specialized in image and spatial design.
A S C P explores radical and popular visual narratives through imagery and scenographic experiences that highlight emerging artists.
Design a scenographic installation for the 2026 art prize, using reclaimed materials provided by Action et Service;
Develop a design approach that aligns with contemporary concerns around sustainable design;
Propose a structure that can be reactivated or reused in other contexts;
Work in dialogue with the technical and logistical constraints of the venue.
Jean-Marc Dimanche et Tiphaine Queguineur for ceramic brussels
Ann Sevrin for Action et Service
Anaïs Sandra Carion et Clara Goblet for MAD Brussels
For the 2026 Art Prize group show, A S C P presents “Vestiges 2.0”, a scenography that reinterprets the codes of the ruin and the museum, playing on the tension between the permanence of matter and the volatility of the digital, between the object and its image.
“We are in the year 2175. The archaeologists of the future unearth the remnants of our vanished world: the works of ten emerging artists, traces of a civilization from the Age of Aquarius — between ruins and low-tech.”
“VESTIGES 2.0” questions our relationship to traces: what will we pass on to future generations?
The scenography allows us to discover the works of emerging creators as the relics of tomorrow. Each piece is presented alongside its digital avatar.
