Biennale Architettura 2025
Image: Pavilion of the Kingdom of Bahrain. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy of 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale.
ARCHITECTURE
Kingdom of Bahrain
Heatwave
Golden Lion for Best National Participation
The Kingdom of Bahrain's pavilion curated by architect Andrea Faraguna won the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the Biennale Architettura 2025. Named Heatwave, the pavilion stands out for addressing the pressing issue of extreme heat by showcasing passive cooling strategies using geothermal wells and solar chimneys connected via a thermo-hygrometric axis, which links underground conditions to outdoor air. The modular structure features a floor and cantilevered ceiling supported by a central column, adaptable for various urban environments.
Image: Canal Café. Photo by Marco Zorzanello. Courtesy of 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale.
ARCHITECTURE
Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Canal Café
Golden Lion for Best Participation in the 19th Exhibition
Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.
The Golden Lion for Best Participation in the 19th Exhibition Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. was awarded to Canal Café by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Natural Systems Utilities, SODAI, Aaron Betsky, Davide Oldani. The installation is set up to use natural filtration systems to purify water from the city's canals and make it info coffee that visitors of the Arsenale can enjoy.
About the Biennale Architettura
2025 Driskell Prize
Image: Desert X 2025, Alison Saar, Soul Service Station. Photo by Lance Gerber.
ART
Alison Saar
Driskell Prize
The High Museum of Art announced artist Alison Saar as the 2025 recipient of the David C. Driskell Prize in recognition of her contributions to the field of African American art. Based in Los Angeles, Saar is widely celebrated for her sculpture, installation and mixed-media works, which tell stories about the African American experience through references to American history, literature and mythology. In 2024, she was selected to create Salon a sculpture commissioned in honor of the 2024 Olympic Games, which is now permanently displayed in the Charles Aznavour garden on the Champs-Élysées. Her installation Soul Service Station was featured as part of Desert X 2025 in Coachella Valley, California.
Photo London 2025
Image: © Gabriel Pinto / courtesy BETA Contemporary. © Silvana Trevale / courtesy Sorondo Projects.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Gabriel Pinto
Silvana Trevale
Photo London x Nikon Emerging Photographer Award
At Photo London 2025, Gabriel Pinto and Silvana Trevale were awarded the Emerging Photographer Award. Presented jointly by BETA Contemporary and Sorondo Projects, their curated showcase,Memoria viva, brings together two visions of Venezuela. What does a land remember of its people – of their births, their deaths, their songs, their silences? In Memoria viva, the two Venezuelan photographers offer an answer shaped by ritual. Gabriel Pinto turns his gaze toward death, while Silvana Trevale toward life.
Art Basel Awards
Image: Meriem Bennani, Windy, Paris+ par Art Basel, 2023. Presented by C L E A R I N G, commissioned by High Line Art and Audemars Piguet Contemporary.
ART
Art Basel Awards
The 36 inaugural Art Basel Awards winners have been announced. Artist Lubaina Himid, designer Grace Wales Bonner and the designers from Formafantasma are among the medal winners praised for their innovative practices. In the visual arts, we find Meriem Bennani and Lydia Ourahmane in the emerging artists category, Ibrahim Mahama and Tony Cokes among the established artists, and Lubaina Himid, Joan Jonas and Cecilia Vicuña among the iconic artists. The winners will choose from among them the 12 gold medallists who will be honoured at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025. At Art Basel in Basel, there will be a day of conferences and debates with the participation of the first 36 winners.
2025 Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design
Image: Patrick McDowell, SS25 campaign by Ben Bradish-Ellames.
FASHION
Patrick McDowell
Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design
Patrick McDowell, founder and creative director of his namesake label, has won the 2025 Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design which recognizes young designers making a difference through sustainable practices or community engagement. McDowell has championed sustainable fashion since he unveiled his label at London Fashion Week in 2018 after graduating from London’s Central Saint Martins. Over the years, he has teamed with new material and biotech firms to create experimental fashion. He turns surplus and deadstock material from brands including Burberry and Swarovski, and archival outfits and fabrics from institutions such as Rambert, Britain’s oldest dance company, into modern creations.
About the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design
Prix Carta Bianca 2025
Image: Euridice Zaituna Kala, Architectures, Thin, dreams I, 2024. Transfer on glass, blue tinted glass, digital image, metal frame, 164,5 x 94 x 42 cm. Photo by Aurélien Mole. © the artist / ADAGP. Courtesy Anne Barrault gallery.
ART
Euridice Zaituna Kala
Premier Prix
Euridice Zaituna Kala was awarded the frist prize at the Prix Carta Bianca 2025. Euridice Zaituna Kala was born in 1987 in Maputo, Mozambique, and lives and works in Maisons-Alfort. Her work addresses the historical and cultural transformations of personal and collective memory as a material that is manipulated and appropriated. The artist borrows from the visual and matrimonial vocabulary of archives to search for traces of subjectivities and communities that have been rendered invisible. She is interested in the representation of bodies and the material conditions of their existence in order to produce gestures that are both healing and familiar.
RIMOWA Design Prize 2025
Image: Elisabeth Lorenz & Marc Hackländer, Hottie.
DESIGN
Elisabeth Lorenz & Marc Hackländer
RIMOWA Design Prize
German design students Elisabeth Lorenz and Marc Hackländer won this year's RIMOWA Design Prize for their design project Hottie. The creation helps resolve period pain via a combination of electrical nerve stimulation and heat therapy, all in a wearable device you put on under your clothes. For this third edition, the participants interpreted the theme of mobility in a wide variety of ways. Projects included a lightweight aluminum and carbon fiber trolley, a wearable device to help people suffering dementia get home safely, an air purity measuring device you could wear like a necklace, a modular system of benches for urban spaces and a clever, contemporary version of the traditional crutch, which won a special mention.
Archibald Prize 2025
Image: Julie Fragar, Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene), 2025. Oil on canvas, 240 x 180.4 cm. © Julie Fragar. Courtesy Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photo: © AGNSW, Jenni Carter.
ART
Julie Fragar
Archibald Prize
Brisbane artist Julie Fragar won Australia's leading prize for portraiture. The four-time finalist of the Archibald Prize was recognised for her portrait of artist and colleague Justene Williams. Titled Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene), the work is a reflection on the labour of getting by. "For Justene, like many women artists, that means the labour of a day job (Justene and I work together at an art school), of making art to deadlines, and the labour (and love) of being a mother. In the lower left of the painting you can see Justene’s daughter Honore looking up at her mum half in awe and half asking if this is what she will have to manage too." says Julie Fragar.
