Kevin Osepa wins Prix de Rome 2025

For the Prix de Rome Visual Arts 2025, Fiona Lutjenhuis, Kevin Osepa, Thierry Oussou, and Buhlebezwe Siwani were nominated and commissioned to produce new work, shown at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam from 29 November 2025 to 15 March 2026.

Based on this work, the jury awarded Kevin Osepa the prize for his layered, practice that moves beyond colonial histories, giving space to suppressed knowledge and alternative narratives. As the winner, Osepa received a €60,000 cash award, presented by State Secretary of Education, Culture and Science Koen Becking.

Kevin Osepa developed a new installation for Prix de Rome Visual Arts 2025 that centres on the fading Curaçaoan mourning tradition of Ocho Dia, reflecting on personal grief alongside the collective loss of Afro-Caribbean rituals. The jury praised Osepa for not only visualising the lasting consequences of colonialism, but for transcending them through a layered, mystical-realistic practice that offers alternatives to dominant Western narratives and brings suppressed knowledge and rituals vividly back to life.

Main Image: State Secretary Koen Becking (Education, Culture and Science) and winner Kevin Osepa. Photo: Aad Hoogendoorn.