Aykan Safoğlu awarded with Birgit Jürgenssen Prize 2021

The Akademie Schloss Solitude congratulates its former fellow Aykan Safoğlu on winning the Birgit Jürgenssen Prize 2021 of the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna! His works will be presented at the Academy’s Atelierhaus from April 28, 2021 to May 12, 2021.

Aykan Safoğlu was a fellow in the practice field »Visual Arts« at Akademie Schloss Solitude from April to October 2018. With his work ziyaret, visit he was part of the exhibition »States of Sensing« (14 November – 15 December 2018, project space Römerstraße 2A). His essay film Off-White Tulips was shown as part of »Postcards of a Human Landscape« (21 September – 7 December 2018, Akademie Schloss Solitude). Off-White Tulips was also part of the 21st Contemporary Art Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil in São Paulo/Brazil in 2019 and ziyaret, visit was shown at VIDEONALE.18 in Bonn/Germany in the beginning of March this year.

Aykan Safoğlu’s works create relationships – even friendships – between cultural, geographical, linguistic and temporal boundaries. His work is situated between film, photography and performance, posing open-ended questions of cultural belonging, creativity and kinship. These relationships, together with his visual language, also convinced the jury.

The Birgit Jürgenssen Prize, worth 5,000 euros, has been awarded every year since 2004 in memory of the artist Birgit Jürgenssen, who formerly taught at the Academy. The award is given in a cooperation of the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Public Service and Sport, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Hubert Winter to a student of the University of Fine Arts for work in the media field, especially artistic photography as well as video or (digital) media art.