Now in its sophomore year, the Art Basel Awards celebrate artists and thought leaders shaping the future of art across nine categories. Here, three 2026 medalists share the possessions that nurture their imaginations.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Established Artist category
I want to share two objects. The first is a wasp cocoon that appears every winter outside my home studio. This tiny object, suspended on a silk thread, is so inconspicuous that one can easily miss it. I have never seen it become either a wasp or a moth, which deepens the mystery and my feelings towards the many invisible beings that share my habitat.
The second is a laptop signed by the author Ray Bradbury. I once had the opportunity to visit him at his home in LA and tell him how important his work has been to me. His eyes became teary as he signed it. It reminds me not to grow up.
Tiffany Sia, Emerging Artist category
Every day this summer, I’ve been streaming a seasonal live feed of bears fishing at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska, while working at my desk. An operator moves from close-ups to wide shots as the day unfolds showing a bear napping with its head on a rock, a sow with her cub, salmon runs, and sometimes one still fishing past midnight, rendered in night vision.
Aziza Kadyri, Emerging Artist category
This is a childhood photo from Taiwan, of me striking the pose that became a trigger for an interactive installation in my show ‘Play Nice,’ at Somerset House in London (2025). I asked my mother to look for pictures of me performing as I was growing up, and she found so many in our old albums. This photo and a digital embroidery test repeating the pose both ended up in the show as interaction prompts.
I bought this spinner part on eBay while researching ‘Play Nice’, last year. It was intended, but never used, for an interactive embroidery piece, inspired by a board game I loved as a kid: The Game of Life. My aunt brought it over from the US; I was really good at cheating at it.
The Art Basel Awards recognize artists alongside curators, patrons, institutions, media figures, and cultural platforms. Rather than rewarding individual achievements, the Awards honor practices with lasting influence across borders, disciplines, and industries. Entering its second year, the Awards strengthen connections between contemporary art and the wider culture through the support of presenting partner BOSS. Each cycle begins with confidential nominations from leading figures across the international art world. A Jury of nine experts selects the Medalists, individuals, and organizations whose work is advancing contemporary culture. Gold Awardees will be selected by their fellow Medalists and announced at Art Basel Miami Beach in December.
Source Material features extracts from a project created by High Snobiety for Art Basel
Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a Thai artist based in Chiang Mai. His practice spans feature films, shorts, and installations, exploring collective memory, time, and perception. Moving fluidly between art and cinema, he challenges conventional storytelling and expands the language of moving images. A key figure in independent film, his work engages with social and cultural histories, and has received wide international recognition and honours, reflecting a sustained interest in the politics of memory and the persistence of the unseen.
Tiffany Sia (b. Hong Kong) is an artist, filmmaker, and writer based in New York whose work examines how images and material culture shape power, governance, and imagined geographies. Her practice traces the apparatus underwriting film/video, attending to what remains unseen or illegible within the visual record. Author of On and Off-Screen Imaginaries (Primary Information, 2024), her films have screened at TIFF, MoMA Doc Fortnight, and New York Film Festival. She has held solo exhibitions at Artists Space, Cantor Arts Center, and Mudam Luxembourg.
Aziza Kadyri is a London-based visual artist of Uzbek descent working across textiles, installation, performance, sculpture and creative technologies. Blending analogue craft with digital processes, her practice confronts cultural erasure and the politics of migration, generating speculative narratives that reactivate memory and build alternative mythologies. She is co-founder of Qizlar, a grassroots collective of artists and activists from Central Asia and its diaspora. Kadyri represented Uzbekistan at the 60th Venice Biennale and exhibits internationally, including the Bukhara Biennial (UZ), Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art (CN), and a recent solo at Somerset House, London (UK). She is a finalist of CIRCA Prize 2025 and a Gold medallist at the 18th International Triennial of Textile
Caption for header image: Apichatpong Weerasethakul. © Kick the Machine.
Published on October 23, 2026.