28.04. ‐ 03.05.2026
LAA 2026

16. LICHTER ART AWARD 2026

INTERNATIONALE
PLATTFORM FÜR VIDEOKUNST

Wir leben in turbulenten Zeiten und erleben konstant Veränderungen und Umbrüche – eine herausfordernde, aber auch spannende Zeit für visuelle Künstler und Filmemacher, um ihrer Arbeit nachzukommen, denn das Eingehen von Risiken ist mitunter essentiell für die Produktion guter zeitgenössischer Kunst.

Auch dieses Jahr werden bei der Ausstellung zum 16. LICHTER Art Award eine Vielzahl an unterschiedlichen Werken vorgestellt, die alle auf ihre Art ein Wagnis eingegangen sind. Insgesamt wurden in diesem Jahr über 180 Werke eingereicht – so viele wie nie zuvor.

In ihrem Film RAPTURE I - VISIT konfrontiert Alisa Berger die Zuschauenden mit der schmerzvollen Realität des Krieges, indem sie mit Hilfe von Virtual Reality ein Opfer zurück an den Ort eines Verbrechens in der Ukraine bringt. In LITTLE PICTURES wird eine Drohne zum Familienmitglied: Lydia Marx lässt das Flugobjekt als Erzähler, Freund und Schöpfer eigener Erinnerungen auftreten. A WIDENESS, OPENING AND CLOSING von Maria Mayland nimmt die Zuschauenden mit in einen intimen Raum, und lässt sie an Gesprächen über die Möglichkeiten und Unmöglichkeiten queerer Historiographie, Ästhetik und Inkohärenz, sowie Kurt Cobain und Trans*Atlantis teilhaben. Artūras UstinovasFATHER SAYS handelt von der komplizierten Beziehung zwischen einem Vater und seinem Sohn. Der Film offenbart die Gedanken, die ein Vater nie ausgesprochen hat. 工 – FORCE TIMES DISPLACEMENT von Angel Wu ist eine sorgfältig choreographierte Videoanimation, die die Zuschauenden auf eine geistige Reise mitnimmt und dabei hinterfragt, was Arbeit bedeutet und warum wir ihr überhaupt nachgehen.

Die Jury für den mit 1.000 Euro dotierten LICHTER Art Award besteht aus Leonie Chima Emeka (Kuratorin und Autorin – Crespo Foundation), Sita Scherer (Filmemacherin, Schriftstellerin und Festival Programmiererin – Kasseler Dokfest) und Saul Judd (Kurator – LICHTER Filmfest). 

VERNISSAGE
DI, 28. April 
17:30 – 20:00 Uhr

AUSSTELLUNG
MI, 29. April bis DO, 30. April
13:00 – 18:00 Uhr

FR, 1. Mai bis SO, 3. Mai
11:00 – 18:00 Uhr

ORT: Die Werke der fünf nominierten Künstler*innen werden in einer kuratierten Ausstellung im Haistudio, in der Berliner Straße 27, 60311 Frankfurt am Main präsentiert.

DIE NOMINIERTEN:

ALISA BERGER
RAPTURE I - VISIT, 2025

LYDIA MARX
LITTLE PICTURES, 2025

MARIA MAYLAND
A WIDENESS, OPENING AND CLOSING, 2025

ARTŪRAS USTINOVAS
FATHER SAYS, 2024

ANGEL WU
工 – FORCE TIMES DISPLACEMENT, 2025


DIE PREISVERLEIHUNG FINDET AM 03. MAI 2026 um 20 Uhr IM MASSIF E STATT.


Die Nominierten und ihre Werke

ALISA BERGER: RAPTURE I - VISIT

Art Award 2026

Alisa Berger with her work RAPTURE I - VISIT, confronts us with the painful reality of the war. She brings Marko, a victim of the war, back to his abandoned and inaccessible apartment, which has been recreated using a 3D photogrammetry scan based on original photographs taken by a photographer inside the occupied region. This first tale of RAPTURE offers a digital reconquest of the occupied space, as Marko visits it through VR for the first time since 2018. In the process it tries to give him some closure. RAPTURE I - VISIT had its world premiere at the 75th Berlinale.


Alisa Berger, 1987*, studied at the KHM Academy of Media Arts Cologne, the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá and Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains. She was nominated for the Max Ophüls Prize and the FIRST STEPS Award of the German Film Academy. From 2018 to 2022 she lived in Tokyo and studied Butoh Performance. In 2023 she received the Studio Collector Prize at Jeu de Paume. Her work has been shown in institutions such as the Eye Film Museum, Netherlands; Jeu de Paume Centre-Wallone-Bruxelles, Paris, France; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum; Arafudo Art Again, Fukushima, Japan; Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art; Washington DC, AHL Foundation, New York, USA and the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf; Kindl Berlin, Germany; and screenings at film festivals like the Berlinale, IDFA, CPH:DOX and Hot Docs. In 2025, her experimental long feature documentary Invisible People had its international cinema release.

LYDIA MARX: LITTLE PICTURES

Art Award 2026

Lydia Marx with her video work LITTLE PICTURES introduces us to a family in which one of the members is a drone who functions as narrator, sibling, friend and image maker of its own memories. At the same time she questions which possible errors and gaps can arise when a technical device produces memories and tries to establish emotional references. The empathetic ability of the drone, even if it is pre-programmed to act upon it, is put to the test.


Lydia Marx *1995, is an artist and filmmaker. Her artistic practice includes video, photography and installations, in which she thematically draws on collective and individual memories as well as technological developments. In her practice, she builds up complex narratives and visual worlds and synchronizes them with processes of human emotions and the change of time. In historical and fictional contexts. She studied at the Expanded Cinema class with Clemens von Wedemeyer at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, where she graduated In 2025. In the Akademie der Bildenden Künste München with Julian Rosefeldt and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen with Jane Jin Kaisen and Agnieszka Polska. LITTLE PICTURES was exhibited at G2 Kunsthalle and HALLE 14 - Centre of Contemporary Art, Leipzig; DG Kunstraum, Munich; Zeise Kino, Hamburg; and screened at the Kino Tagen in collaboration with Goethe - Institut Ukraine, Kyiv. Marx lives and works between Berlin and Paris.

MARIA MAYLAND: A WIDENESS, OPENING AND CLOSING

Art Award 2026

Maria Mayland with her work A wideness, opening and closing, take us into an intimate domestic space while letting us listen to a conversation between Mayland and her two guests Maxi Wallenhorst and Kuku Schrapnel talking about the possibility and impossibility of queer historiography, aesthetics and incoherence, Kurt Cobain and Trans*atlantis.


Maria Mayland *1988, is a visual artist and filmmaker. She obtained her MFA from Basel’s Art Institute, class Chus Martíne. She took part in KKH Stockholm's postgraduate program Philosophy in the Context of Art, in the class of Peter Osborne. Her short film works have been shown in various contexts across Europe. International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, European Media Art Festival Osnabrück, IDFA Amsterdam, Hamburg International Short Film Festival, transmediale, Edinburgh Film Festival and Sharjah Film Platform. She won the German Short Film Award in 2022, the EMAF-Media Art Award of the German film critics association (VdFK) in 2021, and the award for the best entry in the NRW competition of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 2018 and in 2022. Mayland lives and works in Mannheim.

ARTŪRAS USTINOVAS: FATHER SAYS

Art Award 2026

Artūras Ustinovas' performative video work Father Says deals with a father and son's strenuous relationship. Through the sound of the father’s voice a whole monologue reveals all the things that a father always, presumably, thought about his son but never said.


Artūra Ustinovas *1991, is an multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker working across moving images and installations. His artistic practice explores themes of control, vulnerability, and the invisible structures shaping human relationships. Drawing from personal narratives and symbolic imagery, his work navigates the tension between intimacy and distance, reality and perception. Rooted in lived experience, his work often emerges from moments of emotional fracture, conflict, or quiet introspection. Ustinovas lives and works between Vilnius and London.

ANGEL WU: 工 – FORCE TIMES DISPLACEMENT

Art Award 2026

工 - Force Times Displacement by Angel Wu is an thoughtful choreographed video animation which take us in mental journey in so many directions, while questioning the meaning of our labor, and the reasons why we work at all. The work was made in collaboration with Dr. Andrew S. Moore and leading biology institutes in the U.S., Japan and the UK. Through a blending of media, which includes, bio-art, photography, illustrations, paintings, cultural elements and narrative storytelling, it reflects the history of the realities of the Asian education system and working life. It was produced by Angel Huang at future connect ltd.

Angel Wu *1998, is a calligrapher and filmmaker working with pencil, ink, watercolor, wood, sound, and sometimes zebrafish, she shapes the questions that come to her mind. Questions about bloodlines, empires, mental illness, time, love, light, Wall Street, eyesight, entropy, eternity, poverty, beauty, and the first 22 hours of zebrafish life… Wu graduated from Taipei National University of Arts in 2020. Wu works have been shown and nominated internationally. Her film drawn undrew draw, 2020 was nominated for awards at Animafest Zagreb and the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, France. 工 – Force Times Displacement, 2025, was screened in Vancouver International Film Festival, Canada, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Scotland and at the 78th Locarno Film Festival, Switzerland among many others festivals. Wu lives and works between Taipei, Taiwan and Münster, Germany.


*WARNING*
The film 工 – FORCE TIMES DISPLACEMENT contains visual effects that might trigger seizures for viewers with photosensitive epilepsy.

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