Here are the winners of the HKU Awards 2022

Freija Broeren - Geruisloos Nabeeld (‘Silent Afterimage’)

An abandoned cabin in the woods was the starting point for a thorough research into its past. In a thoughtful, respectful and smart manner, the artist introduced the audience to the deceased resident who once lived in the cabin. In an arts installation, leaving lots of room for emotion and intuition, the paintings, photographs and paper sculpture of the resident, the audience could feel connected to this stranger. The jury was touched and impressed by the approach, the quality of the installation, the contagious energy of the maker and the tangible connection that she created.

Manu Huyssen – Tuin, Muziek! (‘Garden, Music!’)

Love for music and for nature are brought thogether by this artist, who used her graduation to take an arsenal of baroque instruments to the botanic gardens of Utrecht. Here she performed baroque, folk and original music, with poems in between. She inspired the jury with the authentic direction she took with her music, partly written by herself, with her word artistry from various regions of the world, and the connecting theme of nature. She managed to share her love for nature in an accessible way with her audience. The jury is confident that her future plans will keep inspiring new people. We can’t say it better than Manu herself on her Exposure page: ‘hand-made analogue listening experiences that stay close to people’ are her gift to the listener.

Kim Winder - U’RE IN skimcare

What a multi-layered experience this artist created. In a church chapel, there's a boutique where products are presented. The creator of these products stands there in a lab coat that shows the project’s logo. She explains to customers what she's doing. When you approach her spotless white counter, like you would in an exquisite perfumery in Paris, you simply turn from a visitor into a customer. Yet the artist never wants to fool or prank people. Nothing of what she does is aggressive or destructive. But she does create a context that is so real and multisensory (the scent of real perfume), that you get pulled in and are confronted with how easily you believe such a display. This is a multimedia work with every aspect well-thought out and executed. An impressive mini universe, as the result of 4 months of work.

Marieke van der Burg - Self Spot - Gemeente Utrecht prijs

The newspapers are filled every week with news on the low mental wellbeing of people, juveniles in particular. Yet talking about it still seems difficult. For the award from the local government of Utrecht, the jury selected this graduation project because it combines high artistic value with a functional tool to stimulate debate on an urgent social theme.

In a playful, yet very precisely executed way, this artist shines a light on serious issues. She created a familiar setting, with an ordinary kitchen unit as a stage and only a simple plug to get it working. A simple spotlight is enough to bring out the shadow world that hides inside this kitchen. The lemon squeezer turns into a monster, the water faucet becomes a swan...

Self Spot puts our humanly feelings, relatable but often unspoken, in the lead role and encourages us to share our feelings. The jury wishes every museum, waiting room, school and library to have a Self Spot. The jury is also convinced that the artist’s talent for creating animations and working with projection techniques will lead to many more remarkable interactive experiences.