Lumen Prize 2026 Winners to Be Announced in November: 89 Finalists Across Three Categories Include Works Shown in Japan

The 2026 edition of the Lumen Prize, an international award for art and technology, selected 89 finalists from more than 2,200 entries from 82 countries. According to the schedule on the official website, winners will be announced in November; as of October 25, they had not been announced. In 2026 the prize was reorganized into three categories, with $5,000 for each category award and $15,000 for the top prize, the Gold Award. The award ceremony is to be held at Kunstsilo, an art museum in Norway. Based on information on the Lumen Prize official website, this article covers the 2026 schedule and award structure, the selection process, the finalists and past winners.

The Lumen Prize was founded in 2012 by Carla Rapoport. It is now run by Lumen Prize Foundation, Inc., a US nonprofit (501(c)(3)), and the official website marks 2026 as a 15-year milestone. As for connections with Japan, the 2026 finalists include works shown in Tokyo and works supported by an Agency for Cultural Affairs program. Major art and design awards in Japan and abroad are introduced in our roundup of 2026 awards.

The 2026 schedule: Winners in November, ceremony in Norway

According to the prize overview page and FAQ, entries for 2026 opened on January 26 and closed on May 27. Judging began in June, and the schedule lists the finalist announcement in August and the winner announcement in November. The FAQ gives the winner announcement as “October or November 2026.” As of October 25, no 2026 winners appeared in the winners archive on the official website.

According to the official website, the award ceremony will be held at Kunstsilo, an art museum in Kristiansand, Norway. The website says the Student Award winner will be invited to the award ceremony at the Kunstsilo Museum. The page introducing “Nordic Interface,” a new program with Kunstsilo, says the selected artists will premiere a new work in Kunstsilo’s Silohall during the award ceremony weekend in November. As of October 25, the ceremony date was not posted on the official website.

Nordic Interface builds on more than five years of collaboration between the Lumen Prize and Kunstsilo. The first artists selected are Entangled Others, the duo of Feileacan Kirkbride McCormick (Norway) and Sofia Crespo (Argentina). Entangled Others won the 2025 “Nature & Climate” award for “Self-Contained.”

Award structure: Reorganized into three categories, with $15,000 for the Gold Award

The three 2026 categories, each with a $5,000 prize, are described in the FAQ as follows.

• Legacy Futures Award: Works that treat time, past, present and future, as material, questioning technology, memory, culture and possibility

• Systems & Structures Award: Works that investigate, build and critique technological, ecological, cultural and social systems

• Experiential Innovation Award: Works that prioritize how they are experienced, through presence, participation, the senses and activation

The top prize, the Gold Award, goes to the work with the highest combined score from the International Selectors Committee and the jury across all categories, and carries $15,000. The total prize money for the three category awards and the Gold Award is $30,000. According to the FAQ, the prize money is funded by entry fees, and in 2026 an application bursary was introduced for artists who would find the fee difficult to pay.

There are other awards as well. The Special Commendation Award, in partnership with The Generative Art Foundation, gives $5,000 to a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) woman artist working in generative art. The Nordic Award, supported by Kunstsilo, is for technology-based work by Nordic artists, with total prize money of $1,000. The Student Award gives the winner $2,000 and an invitation to the ceremony. The Carla Rapoport Award honors work that highlights underrepresented voices, ideas and communities. One finalist was also to be selected for presentation at MUTEK Forum in Montreal, Canada, from August 26 to 28. MUTEK is also held in Tokyo; prices and times for 2026 are compiled in our article on MUTEK.JP 2026.

In 2025, the prize gave 13 awards: nine categories, “Still Image,” “Moving Image,” “Performance & Music,” “Fashion & Design,” “Hybrid,” “Experiential,” “Literature & Poetry,” “Nature & Climate” and “Identity & Culture,” plus the Gold, Nordic, Carla Rapoport and Special Commendation awards.

Selection process: A committee of more than 50 selectors and eight judges

Selection takes place in two stages. First, the International Selectors Committee (ISC), made up of more than 50 experts from around the world, reviews all entries and selects the finalists. Then the jury chooses the category awards and the Gold Award from among the finalists. Scoring considers four criteria: fit with the category, technique, artistry and concept. Works are evaluated in light of their own aims, contexts and methods.

The eight judges for 2026 are as follows (affiliations as listed on the official website).

• Myriam Achard: PHI (head of new media partnerships and PR)

• Annie Bicknell: Tate (curator of public programmes)

• Rachel Falconer: Goldsmiths (senior lecturer in creative technology, head of department)

• Gonzalo Herrero Delicado: Independent curator (lecturer at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art)

• Melanie Lenz: Digital curator, V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum)

• Christiane Paul: Whitney Museum of American Art (adjunct curator of digital art)

• Ulrich Schrauth: UBS Digital Art Museum, Hamburg (artistic director)

• Kate Gu: M+, Hong Kong (associate curator of digital special projects, on sabbatical)

As for ties with the V&A, besides judge Melanie Lenz, the list of the International Selectors Committee also includes a curator of contemporary programmes at V&A South Kensington (no name given). The official website displays the V&A logo as a partner, but as of October 25 no screenings or talks at the V&A related to the 2026 prize had been announced.

The Lumen Prize has also published “The Liminal Review 2026,” a report on trends among the 2026 entries, subtitled “Daemons: New Processes in Arts Technologies.” Written by judge Rachel Falconer, it analyzes 2,225 entries from 82 countries and identifies four “Daemons” emerging from them: Thalassic Drift, Haptic Undertow, Palimpsest Sediment and Jurisdictional Static. The launch event partner is Tate Modern, and the supporting partner is Onassis ONX.

Finalists: 89 works, including some shown in Japan

The list of 2026 finalists is published on the official website. Some works appear in more than one category; “A LIVING POEM” by Sasha Stiles, who won the 2025 “Literature & Poetry” award, is listed in all three. Examples from each category include the following.

• Legacy Futures: Mimi Ọnụọha, “Ground Truths”; Alida Sun, “RITES”; Cyrus Clarke, “The Anemoia Device”

• Systems & Structures: Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler, “Calculating Empires”; Edward Burtynsky and Alkan Avcıoğlu, “Hypertopographics”; Superflux, “Nobody Told Me Rivers Dream”; Yiyun Kang, “Light Architecture”

• Experiential Innovation: Lauren Lee McCarthy, “AUTO”; Daniel Rozin, “Mechanical Mirrors (Performative Version)”; fuse*, “Sál”; niceaunties, “Mirror Into Auntieverse”

The official website does not list the artists’ nationalities, but some finalist descriptions mention presentations in Japan or the involvement of Japanese institutions. There are five such works.

Ryuta Aoki, “Alternative Computations — Worlds Otherwise Calculated”

A finalist in two categories, Legacy Futures and Experiential Innovation. According to its description, it was shown at the artist’s solo exhibition (a special exhibition of the Quantum Art Festival) at Spiral Garden in Tokyo in January 2026. It is an installation in which rain, movement and sound change in response to bodily and ritual gestures.

suzueri (Elico Suzuki), “Mercurius”

A Legacy Futures finalist. In this work, 40 light bulbs transmit by light 40 audio clips taken from films starring Hedy Lamarr. The description also mentions the “photophone,” with which Alexander Graham Bell transmitted voice wirelessly by modulating sunlight in 1880. It was commissioned by Shiseido Gallery and curated by Masaki Oikawa.

Yuma Kishi, “xoxo-skeleton”

A Legacy Futures finalist. Inside a 2.5 m-tall rib-shaped structure, three robotic arms hanging from the ceiling grasp the participant’s wrists and neck. The arms are driven by “MaryGPT,” a language model fine-tuned on a single archive the artist inherited. It was supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ “Media Arts Creator Development Program,” and Takahide Yoshida of the Takashi Ikegami Lab at the University of Tokyo took part in software development.

So Kanno + Takuro Yonezawa + Yutaro Kyono, “Fragmentations of Unity”

An Experiential Innovation finalist. A robotic light installation that behaves like a swarm, it consists of 29 translucent tubes hanging from the ceiling, each containing a rotating mechanism, RGB LEDs and a thermal sensor. It was commissioned by Common Nexus of the Tokai National Higher Education and Research System.

daisy* | Masato Inagaki, “Shoran project”

A Legacy Futures finalist. A real-time interactive installation that reinterprets the Edo-period handscroll “Kidai Shoran” through contemporary computational systems, creating an ever-changing digital environment inhabited by countless autonomous citizens.

Past winners: Theresa Reiwer took Gold in 2024

According to the winners archive, the top prize in 2012 and 2013 was the “First Prize,” and since 2014 it has been awarded as the Gold Award. The 2025 Gold Award went to “Cumulus” by MORAKANA (Tiri Kananuruk & Sebastián Morales), a work that tracks clouds with US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites to watch over the Mexico–US border. In 2024 the award went to Theresa Reiwer’s “Decoding Bias,” and in 2023 to “AUTO{}Construccion” by CNDSD and Ivan Abreu. In 2019, Refik Anadol’s “Melting Memories” was chosen.

“Decoding Bias” (2024) invites visitors to a group therapy session held by eight artificial intelligences (AIs) themselves. The AIs aim to eliminate discriminatory algorithms and rewrite harmful programming, and this session centers on one AI’s gender bias. It is an eight-channel video and sound installation on a 44-minute loop, with screens arranged in a circle to create a 360-degree image. Reiwer’s name does not appear in the list of 2026 finalists.

Overview of 2026

Name: Lumen Prize 2026
Run by: Lumen Prize Foundation, Inc.
Categories: Legacy Futures Award, Systems & Structures Award, Experiential Innovation Award ($5,000 each)
Top prize: Gold Award ($15,000)
Entry period: January 26 – May 27, 2026 (closed)
Finalists: 89 (from more than 2,200 entries from 82 countries)
Winner announcement: Scheduled for November 2026 (official website schedule)
Award ceremony: Kunstsilo (Kristiansand, Norway); date not announced as of October 25
Official website: https://lumenprize.org/

Editor’s perspective

The 2026 edition changed how categories are organized. In 2025, there were nine categories, mainly by medium or field, such as still image, moving image, performance and music, and fashion and design. In 2026 they were consolidated into three categories based on approaches to the work, time, systems and experience, and the same work can be a finalist in multiple categories. For the Gold Award, the prize now explicitly states that it goes to the work with the highest combined score from the selectors committee and the jury.

The official website also reveals how the prize is run. The $30,000 in prize money comes from entry fees, the ceremony is held at Kunstsilo in Norway, and the report launch is a partnership with Tate Modern. The jury includes staff from Tate, the V&A, the Whitney Museum of American Art, M+ and other institutions. Compared with the Nam June Paik Award, which is funded by Gyeonggi Province and selects a winner every two years (see our article on the 9th Nam June Paik Prize), the Lumen Prize rests on an annual open call and entry fees, and creates presentation opportunities through partnerships with museums.

As for Japan, the finalist descriptions show the routes by which Japanese works reach international awards: works supported by an Agency for Cultural Affairs program, works commissioned by Shiseido Gallery and the Tokai National Higher Education and Research System, and works shown at a solo exhibition in Tokyo. The development of media art in Japan is introduced in our explainer on media art. The results are due in November, and whether any of these works wins a category award or the Gold Award will have to wait for that announcement.

Frequently asked questions

When will the Lumen Prize 2026 winners be announced?

The official website schedule says November, and the FAQ says “October or November 2026.” As of October 25, the winners had not been announced. The ceremony is to be held at Kunstsilo in Norway; the date is not posted on the official website.

When did Theresa Reiwer win the Gold Award?

In 2024. The winning work, “Decoding Bias,” is a 44-minute, eight-channel video and sound installation in which eight AIs hold a group therapy session. Reiwer is not on the list of 2026 finalists.

How much is the 2026 prize money?

The three category awards carry $5,000 each and the Gold Award $15,000, for a total of $30,000. There are also the Special Commendation Award ($5,000), the Student Award ($2,000) and the Nordic Award ($1,000 in total).

*Information as of October 25, 2026. Please check the official website for the latest information.

*Top image: So Kanno + Takuro Yonezawa + Yutaro Kyono, “Fragmentations of Unity” (from the Lumen Prize finalist page)

*This article was compiled by the TOKYO ART SPHERE editorial team based on information on the Lumen Prize official website (prize overview, FAQ, 2026 finalists, winners archive, The Liminal Review 2026 and more) (as of October 25, 2026).

Text: TOKYO ART SPHERE Editorial Team