Loewe Foundation has announced Jongjin Park as the winner of the 2026 Craft Prize, awarded for Strata of Illusion(2025), a sculptural ceramic work that challenges conventional perceptions of material, form, and process. Selected from 30 finalists by an international jury spanning design, architecture, criticism, and museum curatorship, including Frida Escobedo, Patricia Urquiola, Jack McCollough, and Lazaro Hernandez, Park was awarded €50,000 for a work the jury praised for its technical innovation, material integrity, and sculptural vision.

Constructed from thousands of layered sheets of paper coated in coloured porcelain slip, Strata of Illusion undergoes a dramatic transformation in the kiln, where the paper burns away and gravity shapes the final slumped form. The result is a piece that moves between control and collapse, blending the language of ceramics with references to glassblowing, bookbinding, and sculptural experimentation. For the jury, it embodied the spirit of the Craft Prize, where risk, process, and material behaviour become central to meaning.

Two special mentions were also awarded. The first recognised the Baba Tree Master Weavers alongside Álvaro Catalán de Ocón for Frafra Tapestry (2024), a large-scale woven work inspired by aerial views of Ghana’s Gurunsi villages, combining contemporary mapping with ancestral weaving traditions. The second honoured Italian artist Graziano Visintin for Collier (2025), a pair of intricate gold necklaces crafted using niello, an ancient metalworking technique reimagined through a distinctly contemporary lens.

This year’s edition presents works that explore balance, tension, transformation, and the evolving language of craft across ceramics, textiles, glass, metal, furniture, and bookbinding. Selected from more than 5,100 submissions representing 133 countries and regions, the 30 shortlisted artists, spanning 20 countries, reflect the increasingly global and interdisciplinary nature of contemporary making.

All shortlisted works will be exhibited at National Gallery Singapore from 13 May to 14 June 2026. Founded in 2016 as a tribute to Loewe’s origins as a collective craft workshop in 1846, the annual Craft Prize continues to celebrate artistic excellence, innovation, and the enduring relevance of craftsmanship in contemporary culture.