Recipients 2026

Power Ekroth (NO/SWE) is an independent curator, critic, and educator, and the managing editor of SITE Zones. She works with Stockholm Konst, commissioning and acquiring art for public spaces in the city. Recently, she curated the exhibition Beyond the Safe Zone at Borås Konstmuseum (2025), Sweden, and The Curse of an Unstoppable Appetite for the Greenlight Triennial (2024) in Skien and Porsgrunn, Norway.

Her curatorial practice takes its point of departure in themes related to democracy, social justice, and intersectional political precarity, often in relation to the dismantling of welfare structures. Projects like Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast for Momentum Biennial 2013 addressed socio-economic frameworks threatening democracy, while The Curse of an Unstoppable Appetite focused on capitaloscene structures contributing to climate collapse.

In Cairo, recurring exhibitions such as Off with their Heads and Persistence Through Joyhave engaged with vulnerabilities and resilience under political repression. From 2022 to 2024, Ekroth was a coordinator between SWAN Emergency Residencies and Artists at Risk, providing shelter for artists fleeing repression and war. While no longer formally employed by SWAN, she continues to contribute on a pro bono basis and additionally collaborates with SWAN through CurExRes, her curator residency for visiting curators to Sweden. She is a co-founder of the Swedish Curators' Association.

Elise Macmillan is an artist based in Oslo, Norway. Her work spans installation, performance, image, and sound. Recent projects include sound works accessible via telephone hotline, experimental broadcasts, and a song cycle released on endless loop tape. Her work has been presented at The Kitchen (New York), Haus der Kunst (Oslo), Rewire Festival (The Hague), CCRMA (Stanford), Land (Kansas City), and the Lofoten International Art Festival and Sørvågen Radio among others. As a composer, violinist and electronic musician, she has collaborated with a wide range of ensembles and artists. Originally from the US, she moved to Telemark to study Hardanger Fiddle. She is currently part of the duo Our Beethoven with John Andrew Wilhite, Verdensteatret, the band Snarl, and Three to the Three to the Heart <3