As part of the opening of the M26 exhibition featuring the HGB’s master’s students, Steffen Hildebrand, collector and managing director of the G2 Kunsthalle, and Leo Wedepohl, director of the G2, presented the 2026 Master’s Student Prize.
This year’s winner is Hannah Witte. For her final project , Queering Dis/ability Design, she receives prize money of €10,000 and a studio space for a period of 12 months. This year marks the tenth time the prize has been awarded.
Hannah Witte is a graphic designer and lives in Leipzig. She studied communication design at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, graduating in 2020. In 2024, she obtained her diploma from the HGB Leipzig, and in 2026 she completed her master’s programme there in the typography class taught by Prof. Anna Lena von Helldorff.
Her design practice focuses on print media, experimental typography and visual identities – predominantly in the arts and culture sector. In her work, she explores queer-feminist strategies to highlight and deconstruct discriminatory structures and gaps in design processes.
Her book *Typohacks – A Handbook for Typography and Gender-Sensitive Language* was published by Verlag form in 2021. Since 2022, she has also been a co-founder of FLINType, an online platform and a living archive that showcases writing by FLINTA people from around the world.
The jury’s statement reads: “Hannah Witte, born in Herdecke in 1993, has developed ‘Queering Dis/ability Design’, a practice-oriented handbook for designers that addresses accessibility and inclusion in graphic design. The work brings together queer, feminist and disabled perspectives and translates these into concrete design practice. In doing so, she does not begin merely with the retrospective adaptation of design, but understands inclusive thinking as a fundamental component of the design process. Witte combines design practice with artistic research and theory. The aim is not merely to remove existing barriers, but also to make them visible, to question them and to open up new perspectives on design. The publication is complemented by a series of workshops in which designers develop and test experimental and participatory strategies. The publication views accessibility not as an ancillary measure, but as a central design task, thereby providing impetus for a more accessible and inclusive future. Its relevance extends beyond design practice and is intended as an invitation to the wider public to engage with issues of breaking down barriers.”
The members of the 2026 expert jury were:
Dr. Barbara Cueto (curator, author and researcher), Steffen Hildebrand (collector and commercial director of G2 Kunsthalle), Stephan Koal (director Kunstverein Ost Berlin) und Leo Wedepohl (director G2 Kunsthalle) and Agnes Wegner (rector HGB)
A prerequisite for application was the successful completion of the master student examination at the HGB in 2026. Works were submitted in the fields of book art/graphic design, painting/graphics, photography and media art. By establishing the cross-media and cross-class ‘Meisterschüler*innen’ Prize, the G2 Kunsthalle provides targeted and direct support to young artists at the start of their careers. The aim is to support the development of contemporary art production locally. The prize is awarded once a year to one master’s student from each year group at the HGB.