Steffen Hildebrand, collector and managing director of G2 Kunsthalle, and Leo Wedepohl, director of G2, awarded the 2024 Master Student Prize as part of the opening of the M24 Festival of the Meisterschüler*innen. This year's winner is Michalina Ludmiła Musielak. She receives the prize money of €10,000 and a workspace for a period of 12 months for her final thesis "Mit sozialistischem Gruß". The prize was awarded for the eighth time this year.
Michalina Ludmiła Musielak was born in 1990 in Wrocław, Poland. Before becoming a Meisterschüler*in at the HGB under Prof. Clemens von Wedemeyer, she studied under the video artist Mirosław Bałka at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where she also completed her Master's degree in New Media. She graduated in visual and media anthropology at the Free University of Berlin. Musielak has exhibited at the European Media Art Festival in Osnabrück, at the Bauhaus Dessau and at the Architecture Weekend in Gdynia.
Between 1986 and 1992, at a time of significant political change, the fall of the Berlin Wall and Mandela's release from prison, an architectural transplant took place in Tanzania. East German architects, funded by UN-Habitat, proposed a technology with a name created for the occasion: Wall-Panel-Column (WPC). What is the story of this mobile artefact? For whom is this story important and why? The video installation "Mit sozialistischem Gruß" consists of three video loops, three architectural models and archive documents. The models are presented on an installation of wooden stands and concrete blocks, reminiscent of this technology. Musielak developed the work during her masterclass at the HGB. As part of a residency at the Bauhaus Lab of the Bauhaus Foundation Dessau and a scholarship from the Deconfining project, she was able to further develop the video installation about East German architecture in Tanzania.
The jury statement reads: "In her multimedia work 'Mit sozialistischem Gruß', Michalina Ludmiła Musielak, born in 1990 in Wrocław, Poland, tells the story of an architectural system that was introduced in Tanzania by East German architects between 1986 and 1992. Musielak combines precise research with artistic practice. In doing so, she links technical details of the construction system with historical events and social upheavals such as the fall of the Berlin Wall or Nelson Mandela's release, thus emphasising the interface between architecture, politics and history. In the work, the artist not only visualises geopolitical connections, but also questions her own position as the initiator of the research. On an installation and sculptural level, the work captivates through the skilful interweaving of art and research: it shows the architectural system, but at the same time uses it as a fragile display for the research, subtly questioning the original structural intention. 'With a socialist salute' makes it clear how architecture functions as a carrier of ideological and cultural values, combining art, research and social reflection."
The members of the 2024 expert jury were
Carina Bukuts (Curator Portikus), Lisa Marei Schmidt (Director Brücke-Museum Berlin-Dahlem), Steffen Hildebrand (Collector and Managing Director G2 Kunsthalle), Leo Wedepohl (Director G2 Kunsthalle) and Agnes Wegner (Rector HGB).
Michalina Ludmiła Musielak's works can be seen until 29 September as part of the M24 Meisterschüler*innen-Festival at Techne Sphere Leipzig.
The prerequisite for the application was the successful completion of the master student examination at the HGB in 2024. Works from the fields of book art/graphic design, painting/graphics, photography and media art were submitted. With the foundation of the cross-media and cross-class master student award, the G2 Kunsthalle specifically and directly supports young artists at the beginning of their careers. The aim is to support the development of contemporary art production on site. The prize is awarded once a year to all HGB master students in a given year.