Canadian-born artist Kapwani Kiwanga has been named the winner of the 2025 Joan Miró Prize, one of the most prestigious and internationally respected awards in contemporary art. The prize, awarded by the Fundació Joan Miró with the support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) and automotive brand CUPRA, includes a cash award of €70,000 and a major solo exhibition at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona in 2026.
The Joan Miró Prize celebrates artists whose work reflects the innovative spirit, political engagement, and poetic vision of the celebrated Catalan artist Joan Miró (1893–1983). Since its inception in 2007, the prize has spotlighted mid-career and breakthrough artists from around the globe, whose practices align with Miró’s values of experimentation, humanism, and a deep connection to material and symbolic language.
A Prize with a Visionary Legacy
Over the years, the Joan Miró Prize has been awarded to an impressive list of contemporary visionaries:
- 2007: Olafur Eliasson (Iceland/Denmark), known for immersive, perception-altering installations using natural elements like light and water.
- 2009: Pipilotti Rist (Switzerland), whose vibrant video works explore femininity, the body, and media culture.
- 2011: Mona Hatoum (Lebanon/UK), lauded for her politically charged installations interrogating displacement and identity.
- 2013: Roni Horn (USA), known for conceptual works across photography, glass, and text.
- 2015: Ignasi Aballí (Spain), who explores absence, invisibility, and systems of knowledge.
- 2017: Kader Attia (France/Algeria), whose work critically examines colonial legacies and notions of repair.
- 2019: Nalini Malani (India), an early feminist voice in South Asian art using video, painting, and shadow play.
- 2023: Tuan Andrew Nguyen (Vietnam/USA), whose films and installations explore memory, trauma, and community resilience.
With this year’s prize, Kapwani Kiwanga (b. 1978, Hamilton, Canada) joins this esteemed cohort for her research-driven, interdisciplinary practice that bridges anthropology, history, science, and art.
A Research-Based Practice with Global Reach
Born to a family of Tanzanian descent, Kiwanga grew up in Brantford, Ontario — on the Haldimand Tract, traditional territory of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples. There, her early understanding of colonialism and Indigenous histories took root. She studied anthropology and comparative religion at McGill University in Montreal before moving to Paris in 2005 to attend the École des Beaux-Arts.
Kiwanga’s artistic language spans sculpture, installation, photography, video, and performance. She often appears as a researcher or archivist in her work, constructing fictional or speculative frameworks to question power dynamics, hidden histories, and institutional legacies. Her concept of “exit strategies” — ways of rethinking entrenched systems and seeing from multiple perspectives — has become central to her aesthetic and political approach.
Recent Highlights and Global Recognition
In 2024, Kiwanga represented Canada at the 60th Venice Biennale with Trinket, a stunning, site-specific installation for the Canadian Pavilion. Composed of conterie (Venetian seed beads), the work examined global trade and colonial-era economic relations between Africa and Europe — a continuation of her ongoing exploration of how value and power are constructed.
In 2023, she was the subject of The Length of the Horizon, a mid-career retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. Other solo exhibitions have taken place at the Haus der Kunst (Munich), Copenhagen Contemporary, South London Gallery, Jeu de Paume (Paris), and the Power Plant (Toronto), among many others.
Her accolades include the 2020 Prix Marcel Duchamp (France), the 2018 Frieze Artist Award (USA), and the 2018 Sobey Art Award (Canada), marking her as one of the most celebrated Canadian artists of her generation.
A Fitting Recognition
The Joan Miró Prize recognizes “a spirit of exploration, innovation, commitment and freedom” — qualities that deeply resonate with Kiwanga’s wide-ranging, politically sharp, and poetically charged body of work. As the art world looks ahead to her forthcoming exhibition at Fundació Joan Miró in 2026, this award underscores Kiwanga’s growing legacy as a singular voice in global contemporary art.
