Beyond Graduation. The Klimt02 New Talents Award and the Transition to Professional Practice

Graduating changes the conditions in which artists create. Workshops, teachers, and fellow students have provided an environment for experimentation and discussion. After graduation, other questions arise: how to keep working, where to present artworks, and how to find the connections and resources needed to sustain an independent practice.

The Klimt02 New Talents Award aims to address this moment, within the limits of what it can offer. Through projects nominated by member schools, it provides graduates with an international context in which to share their work and begin developing professional relationships.


Recognising Artists and Schools

Each nomination begins with a selection made by the school. Teachers understand the process behind a project: the experiments, difficulties, and decisions that have helped shape it. Presenting a graduate also means acknowledging this learning environment.
Hannah Oatman, the 2020 award winner, describes this relationship between education and artistic development: I chose to go to RISD for graduate school specifically because I wanted to hone my conceptual skills. / Hannah Oatman, interview with Klimt02, 2021.

The publication of nominated projects and degree shows reveals different teaching methods, interests, and approaches to contemporary jewellery. For prospective students, it offers a way to discover schools through the work developed there. For the professional community, it provides insight into ideas and artistic languages emerging from education.

Schools’ participation is essential to the project. The award brings visibility to individual work and to the structures that have made it possible.


Giving Visibility a Context

An artwork needs context if we are to understand what it proposes. Project presentations, teachers’ comments, and interviews connect the pieces with their makers’ questions and decisions.

Teachers’ statements also offer a reading of what the work communicates. Discussing Hannah Offermann’s project, her guiding teacher Andi Gut observes: Hannah’s jewellery fosters self-awareness and confidence, harnessing the unique power jewellery has to transform how we feel. / Andi Gut, Pforzheim University School of Design, statement on Hannah Offermann’s work.

This editorial work is part of the award’s purpose. Publication on Klimt02 enables artists, educators, curators, galleries, and collectors to discover projects developed in different settings. Their continued presence in the archive makes them accessible beyond each edition.

Over time, these editions form a body of material documenting ways of learning and creating. Initial visibility becomes an opportunity for research, connection, and knowledge.


Making the Criteria Clear

Selection involves taking a position. The jury considers the clarity of the artist’s statement, the relationship between concept and visual language, the coherence of the project, the quality of its execution, and its ability to offer different layers of interpretation.

These criteria are discussed from perspectives shaped by artistic practice, collecting, gallery work, and publishing. The participation of previous winners also brings the experience of someone who has recently navigated this transition. An artist recognised by the award goes on to contribute to the assessment of other graduates’ work.


Learning to Position One’s Work

Through the award, Klimt02 asks graduates to make an initial effort to position their work within a professional context. Setting prices, understanding the market, working with a gallery, or presenting a piece to a buyer are decisions that affect the continuity of an artistic practice.

This transition also requires distinguishing between the professional paths available after graduation: developing independent work, accepting commissions, designing for companies, producing work for other makers, or teaching. These activities can be combined, but each involves conditions and commitments that need to be understood before making informed choices.

What place do these questions occupy in education? How are students prepared to assess an opportunity, negotiate terms, and sustain their work? We consider these essential aspects of artistic education and experience. The award and the exhibition offer a practical opportunity to address them in dialogue with schools and graduates.


The Experience Behind the Recognition

Interviews with award winners give these questions a concrete dimension. Lars Joosten, winner of the 2021 Audience Award, expressed one of his aims: In the near future, I want to focus more on promoting my work by participating in exhibitions, competitions, and galleries. / Lars Joosten, interview with Klimt02, 2022.

In her interview, Hannah Oatman also discusses graduating during the pandemic, finding a job, and setting up a studio at home. These accounts show how a career takes shape through artistic decisions and everyday circumstances. The award can provide an opportunity; each artist must find how to make it part of their own path.


From Publication to Exhibition

The solo exhibition at Hannah Gallery allows some of these decisions to be put into practice. Preparing it involves selecting pieces, considering their display, communicating the project, and establishing terms of sale. It also offers the public a direct encounter with the scale, materials, and presence of the artworks.

Exhibitions such as Contemporary Comedy by Shengyi Chen, The Line by Hannah Oatman, Understanding Metal by Shuyao Hong, Chaos by Lucy Pearl Petts, The Line of Life by Yonghak Jo, and Between Protection and Vulnerability by Hannah Offermann demonstrate the range of artistic languages the award has supported.

In its current form, this support includes a one-year Klimt02 artist membership, a professional profile, a solo exhibition at Hannah Gallery, and a €1,000 prize sponsored by Maria Luisa Samaranch, linked to the acquisition of a work for her collection.

Publication, exhibition, and acquisition establish different and complementary relationships: introducing a project, sharing it with the public, and bringing an artwork into a collection.

As the New Talents Award reaches its twelfth edition, its value also lies in the continuity of these relationships. Supporting emerging artists means paying attention to their work while its direction is still open, and contributing to the conditions that can help it continue.

Explore the Award: Schools, Editions, Artists, and Exhibitions


Klimt02 Member Schools: Discover the Klimt02 Member Schools

Explore the schools’ profiles, educational programmes, and activities. The annual compilations below bring together participating schools’ degree shows and nominated projects.


Award Editions and Participating Schools

2026 — 12th Edition
2025 — 11th Edition
2024 — 10th Edition
2023 — 9th Edition
2022 — 8th Edition
2021 — 7th Edition
2020 — 6th Edition
2019 — 5th Edition
2018 — 4th Edition
2017 — 3rd Edition
2016 — 2nd Edition
2015 — 1st Edition


Previous Winners and Their Nominating Schools

• 2025 — Hannah Offermann
  Pforzheim University School of Design.
• 2024 — Yonghak Jo
  Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle.
• 2023 — Natascha Frechen
  Hochschule Trier, Idar-Oberstein.
• 2022 — Lucy Pearl Petts
  Glasgow School of Art.
• 2021 — Shuyao Hong
  Nanjing University of the Arts.
• 2021 Audience Award — Lars Joosten
  PXL-MAD School of Arts.
• 2020 — Hannah Oatman
  Rhode Island School of Design.
• 2020 Audience Award — Inbar Avneri
  Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art.
• 2019 — Esther Heite
  Hochschule Düsseldorf, Peter Behrens School of Arts.
• 2018 — Shengyi Chen
  Central Saint Martins.
• 2017 — Lucy Ganley
  Central Saint Martins.
• 2016 — Sara Malm
  HDK – Academy of Design and Crafts.
• 2015 — Anna Norrgrann, Akiko Shinzato, and Katrin Feulner
  Nominated by HDK – Academy of Design and Crafts, Central Saint Martins, and Pforzheim University School of Design, respectively.

Discover the Schools Through Their Award-Winning Graduates

• Pforzheim University School of Design — Hannah Offermann.
• Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle — Yonghak Jo.
• Hochschule Trier — Natascha Frechen.
• Glasgow School of Art — Lucy Pearl Petts.
• Nanjing University of the Arts — Shuyao Hong.
• PXL-MAD School of Arts — Lars Joosten.
• Rhode Island School of Design — Hannah Oatman.
• Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art — Inbar Avneri.
• Hochschule Düsseldorf — Esther Heite.
• Central Saint Martins — Shengyi Chen.
• Central Saint Martins — Lucy Ganley.
• HDK – Academy of Design and Crafts — Sara Malm.
• HDK – Academy of Design and Crafts — Anna Norrgrann.
• Central Saint Martins — Akiko Shinzato.
• Pforzheim University School of Design — Katrin Feulner.

Award Exhibitions at Hannah Gallery
Dates below refer to the exhibition year.

• 2026 — Hannah Offermann: Between Protection and Vulnerability.
• 2025 — Yonghak Jo: The Line of Life.
• 2023 — Lucy Pearl Petts: Chaos.
• 2022 — Shuyao Hong: Understanding Metal.
• 2021 — Hannah Oatman: The Line.
• 2020 — Esther Heite: Human and Object.
• 2019 — Shengyi Chen: Contemporary Comedy.
• 2017 — Lucy Ganley: Show Your Solidarity.
• 2016 — Sara Malm: In Line With, presented at Klimt02 Gallery, the gallery’s former name.

Interviews and Jury Perspectives

• Hannah Oatman — I Always Felt Stuck Between the Art and the Commercial World When Making Jewelry.
• Lars Joosten — My Designs Only Consist of the Necessary Elements to Achieve a Goal.
• Interview with Inbar Avneri.
• Esther Heite — Creativity Always Comes from a Character.
• Interview with Shengyi Chen.
• Meet the Jury Members of the New Talents Award 2025.
• Meet the Jury Members of the New Talents Award 2024

Current Award

New Talents Award 2026 by Klimt02 — 12th Edition: Award Details, Jury, Prizes, and Key Dates