2026 Aesthetica Art Prize main prize winner Felipe Castelblanco. Picture: Matt Eich
FELIPE Castelblanco is the £10,000 Main Prize winner of the 2026 Aesthetica Art Prize at York Art Gallery with his 2025 three-channel video and sound work Tunda: A Quantic Plant and the Devil’s Breath.
The £1,000 Emerging Prize went to DIVA’s three-channel video and sound work Memoria 2020: When Memories Are No Longer Enough, produced in 2025 with the support of the Department of Art History and Film Studies at the University of Montreal and the Graduate Film Programme at Howard University.
Felipe Castelblanco is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher and filmmaker who works at the intersection of participatory, film, and Media Art. Tunda: A Quantic Plant and the Devil’s Breath explores the entangled histories of plants and colonial extraction, depicting 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 artefacts 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. The work combines science, ethnomedicine and ecology, encouraging us to question how we see things.
Memoria 2020: When Memories Are No Longer Enough reflects on DIVA’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, rooted in community resilience and resistance. The work explores how artistic archives, cultural memory and testimony shape belonging across diasporic histories.
Both winners are featured in the Aesthetica Art Prize 2026: States of Becoming exhibition, running at York Art Gallery until November 15 2026.
The exhibition showcases 20 shortlisted artists whose work addresses urgent global themes, including health and wellbeing and the environment in the modern age; the impact of emerging technologies on perception; our changing relationship with the world and to nature past and present; memory as something continually reconstructed and identity, migration and belonging.
Moved this year from the ground floor to the first floor, this annual showcase presents the work of contemporary artists around the globe, working across a range of media, including digital media arts, while supporting York’s status as a UNESCO Media Arts City and bolstering the creative industries within this historic city.
Aesthetica director Cherie Federico says: “Now marking its 20th anniversary, the Aesthetica Art Prize stands as an international platform for contemporary art, amplifying voices that shape and challenge the cultural conditions of the present day.
“Over two decades it has evolved into a space where artistic practice is not only exhibited but also activated, supporting careers, fostering global dialogue and championing work that responds directly to the urgencies of now.
“This is art with purpose: work that operates as a force of disruption and recalibration, unsettling fixed ways of seeing and opening up new ways of understanding a world in flux.”
The selected artists engage directly with the defining pressures of contemporary life, from accelerating technologies that reshape perception and truth, to the legacies of colonial histories and their ongoing impact on identity and belonging, and ecological systems under strain, says Cherie.
“Across these works, memory is not fixed but porous and unstable, continuously rewritten through image, material and experience. Photography, film and installation move beyond documentation into active states of becoming, where meaning is constructed, unsettled and reformed,” she continues.
“Rather than resolving uncertainty, the Prize holds space for it – creating a platform where contemporary art reflects, resists and redefines the present.”
Of the winners, she says: “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.
“Felipe Castelblanco and DIVA, 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 from fresh perspectives, creating space for reflection, dialogue and new ways of seeing.”
Livia Turnbull, curator of contemporary art at York Art Gallery, says: “It is wonderful to be hosting Aesthetica as it celebrates its 20th year. The range of mediums are always an exciting part of the exhibition design, blending the physical and digital into York Art Gallery and recognising how they sit alongside the other contemporary works in our own collection.
“The Prize helps to show the range of artistic diversity within the exhibitions programme and showcases York as a champion of creative arts and media.”
The 20 shortlisted artists on display are: Alexis Pichot; Chrissy Lush; Claudia Behrensen: DIVA (Emerging Prize winner); Edgar Martins; Felipe Castelblanco (Main Prize winner); Filip Haglund; Hope Strickland; Jarrett Murphy; Jeonghan Yun; Katharine Dowson; Kazuaki Koseki; Liza Dracup; Magid Magid; Neil Armstrong; Neville Gabie; Sara Campaci; Teti (Julia Teti); Tommy Goguely and Yasuaki Matsuura.
Some works mesh a combination of the States Of Becoming themes together, such as winner Castelblanco’s Tunda: A Quantic Plant and the Devil’s Breath, while Claudia Behrensen ‘s Sacred Bond follows a similar theme, but instead looks to the future by portraying the link between people and the natural world through powerful imagery of a dystopian world if nature continues to be neglected in favour of artificial entertainment.
Other works from Filip Haglund, Hope Strickland, Jarrett Murphy and Alexis Pichot also navigate themes of the natural world. Pichot and Murphy use photography and prints to capture forests and mountains, while Haglund and Strickland portray their explorations of the ocean and rivers through film.
Kazuaki Koseki captures Himebotaru fireflies, a species unique to Japan, in an illuminated scene highlighting the beauty of the fireflies with the fragility of nature.
DIVA’s Memoria 2020: When Memories Are No Longer Enough and Magid Magid’s Faith Amongst The Ruins look at identity, race and cultural memory in the community, while Edgar Martins’ prints make a poignant comment on mental health in the modern world.
Jeonghan Yun’s Photograph Drawing III encourages discussion about how photography and drawing are defined, directing focus to either the different lenses or the abstract of the overall piece. Contemporary art is a continually fluctuating practice, where works such as Yun’s facilitate how these media are displayed and interpreted.
York, as a proud member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, celebrates new and ground-breaking installations that demonstrate the creativity and innovation of contemporary artists.
York’s status as a UNESCO City of Media Arts provides an important cultural foundation for this work, positioning it within a globally connected network of creative cities. This status reinforces the city’s role as a site of exchange where international artistic practice intersects with local cultural infrastructure.
Within this framework, the Aesthetica Art Prize continues to expand its global reach, with artists applying to enter from more than 60 countries and contributing to an increasingly diverse curatorial field.
The exhibition becomes a space where international perspectives converge, producing dialogue that extends beyond geography. Contemporary art is understood here as a shared global language shaped through multiple contexts and voices, creating a dynamic environment where cultural exchange is continuous and evolving.
The Aesthetica Art Prize exhibition runs until November 15, open Wednesdays to Sundays, 10am to 5pm, and is included in general admission. A programme of talks will accompany the exhibition; events will be uploaded throughout the run at https://www.yorkartgallery.org.uk/exhibition/aesthetica-art-prize-2026/.