Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation gives HfG Rundgang Award 2026 to Kerstin Weiser
Kerstin Weiser receives this year’s HfG Rundgang Award 2026 by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation for her project “Von Sandburg zu Sandburg” (“From sandcastle to sandcastle”). Presented annually, the prize recognises students at the Offenbach University of Art and Design (HfG Offenbach), whose work engages with the medium of photography. As part of its commitment to supporting emerging artists, the Foundation has presented the €3,000 award since 2010. The ceremony took place on 10 July, during the University’s annual Rundgang exhibition in Offenbach. This year’s jury comprised photographer Barbara Klemm, Alexandra Lechner, Director of Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, and Cornelia Siebert, Junior Curator at the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation.
Kerstin Weiser impressed the jury with her series “Von Sandburg zu Sandburg”, in which she explores the playground as a designed space of experience and examines its distinctive architecture. Her attention is directed particularly towards playground equipment, that appears sculptural in nature, characterised by vibrant primary colours and unusual forms. In her artistic investigation, which began in Germany and continued in Japan, these structures serve as the starting point for a carefully conceived visual staging.
Weiser invites people dressed in colour-coordinated clothing to climb onto the playground structures and photographs them in such a way that their bodies appear as extensions of the organically shaped objects.
As a result, the structures are no longer perceived as functional play installations, but instead as surreal, autonomous forms. The use of harsh flash lighting further lends the photographed subjects an almost abstract, graphic, and two-dimensional quality. With a visual language that is both highly distinctive and strikingly powerful, “Von Sandburg zu Sandburg” challenges conventional ways of seeing through unusual perspectives. Through the deliberate use of her camera, Weiser creates carefully staged images that allow the playground to be experienced simultaneously as both a tangible place and an abstract visual landscape.
Born in Bingen am Rhein in 1999, Kerstin Weiser is currently studying in the Department of Art at HfG Offenbach.
Further works by Kerstin Weiser can be seen until 16 August in the group exhibition “Worlds within Worlds” at The Cube in Eschborn. Initiated by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, the exhibition is a collaborative project between photography students from HfG Offenbach and students of the Curatorial
Studies Master’s programme, run jointly by Goethe University Frankfurt and the Städelschule in Frankfurt.
