THE ARTISTS NOMINATED FOR THE COAL STUDENT PRIZE
Three students from French art and cultural institutions have also been nominated for the seventh edition of the COAL Student…
COAL PRIZE 2026: THE WINNERS
The 2026 COAL Prize was awarded to Chang-Ching Su for his project Jigging Green: A Dream Cast in Dormancy. The Jury’s Special Prize was awarded to Amélie Bouvier for her project Quadrivium – Orbital Pulse. The Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles/Paris Special Mention went to Marielle Chabal for her project Programme OPP-OPS: L’infiltration de l’ombre. The Ateliers Médicis Special Mention was awarded to Lou Le Forban for her project La Bête noire. The Nuits des Forêts Special Mention went to nomasmetaforas for their project Apprendre à mieux rêver. This year, for the first time, a Special Prize Outside the Competition – Fondation Carmignac was awarded to Elena Bajo for her project Artemisia Noctis: A Grammar of Darkness.
The 2026 COAL Prize was awarded to Chang-Ching Su for his project Jigging Green: A Dream Cast in Dormancy. The Jury’s Special Prize was awarded to Amélie Bouvier for her project Quadrivium – Orbital Pulse. The Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles/Paris Special Mention went to Marielle Chabal for her project Programme OPP-OPS: L’infiltration de l’ombre. The Ateliers Médicis Special Mention was awarded to Lou Le Forban for her project La Bête noire. The Nuits des Forêts Special Mention went to nomasmetaforas for their project Apprendre à mieux rêver. This year, for the first time, a Special Prize Outside the Competition – Fondation Carmignac was awarded to Elena Bajo for her project Artemisia Noctis: A Grammar of Darkness.
Published on 1 October 2026
The award ceremony will take place on 4 December 2026 at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris, marking the opening of Sans Réserve, an event dedicated to artistic creation committed to ecology, which will run from 4 December 2026 to 10 January 2027.
The COAL Prize 2026 invites artists to defend the night as a common good, a major ecological issue for the regeneration of life, a refuge, a diversity of languages to be celebrated, a right to rest and to darkness. Inventing stories to relearn how to inhabit the shadows, creating art with the night, is to contribute to an ecology of rhythms. Restoring the fear of the night is a perfect antidote to anthropocentrism, because it forces us to be humble, confronting us with the depths of the sky, the intimacy of the vast, the immensity of the cosmos.
Discover the winner of the 2026 COAL Student Prize
THE WINNERS
CHANG-CHING SU, Winner of the COAL Prize 2025
For his project JIGGING GREEN: A DREAM CAST IN DORMANCY
Chang-Ching Su investigates a distinctive form of light pollution in the Matsu archipelago, Taiwan: the green lights of squid-fishing boats which, each night, transform the horizon into an artificial dawn. Developed with the Dark-Sky night conservation association, the project combines photography, video, light installation and research to document the impact of this light on nocturnal and migratory species, while also examining the political history of darkness in Matsu, long shaped by military curfews and requirements for domestic lights to be concealed. Through this investigation, the artist reveals a transborder system where ecology, labour, food, surveillance, maritime economics and geopolitical imaginaries intersect.
Chang-Ching Su, was born in Taiwan in 1995, he lives and works in Wisconsin.
A research-based artist working with photography and video installation, Chang-Ching Su explores the power dynamics shaping sociopolitical systems, notably through his project Jigging Green on the Taiwan Strait. His work has been presented at EXPO Chicago, MIA Photo Fair, Skövde Art Museum and the Taiwan International Photo Festival. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
AMÉLIE BOUVIER, WINNER OF THE 2026 COAL PRIZE JURY’S SPECIAL MENTION, FOR HER PROJECT QUADRIVIUM – ORBITAL PULSE
Amélie Bouvier explores the contemporary transformation of the night sky in an age of proliferating satellites. Composed of modules made from metal, wood and bio-based materials, her sculptural and sonic installation, conceived as a sensory observatory, translates human activity in space into rhythms and vibrations. Each activated module makes the presence of objects in orbit perceptible: communication, observation and navigation satellites, scientific satellites and space debris. Inspired by archaeoastronomical architectures, the work explores how these transformations of the sky are reshaping our cosmological imaginaries and our relationship with the Earth.
Amélie Bouvier, was born in France in 1982, she lives and works in Brussels.
Amélie Bouvier examines cultural memory through the history of astronomy and scientific imagery, revealing the ideological frameworks underlying representations of the sky. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at the Pavillon Blanc Henri-Molina (France), the Aomori Contemporary Art Center (Japan), CHRONIQUES – Biennale des Imaginaires Numériques and the Museo Patio Herreriano (Spain), and was the subject of the monograph Staring Into the Night, published in 2024 by Hopper & Fuchs. She is represented by Harlan Levey Projects and Dialogue. ).
LOU LE FORBAN, WINNER OF THE ATELIERS MÉDICIS SPECIAL MENTION, FOR HER PROJECT LA BÊTE NOIRE
La Bête noire explores the ambivalent figure of the wild boar, once a mythical hero and now perceived as a pest, through a speculative animated film unfolding over the course of a single night. In this nocturnal immersion, somewhere between memory and hallucination, a human being, implanted with an animal memory, enters the dream of a group of suids travelling through forests and urban areas. The work takes the form of a textile pavilion evoking medieval hunting scenes, housing sculptures and drawings made with natural pigments. Connecting ancient imaginaries with ecological urgencies, the project transforms the night into a space where an obscured form of wild intelligence can emerge.
Lou Le Forban, was born in Marseille in 1997, where she lives and works.
A graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris and Le Fresnoy, Lou Le Forban develops a practice combining film, painting and textiles, drawing on real and fictional narratives rooted in the medieval marvellous. Her work has been exhibited at FRAC Île-de-France, the Grande Halle de la Villette, the LaM and the Musée national du Moyen Âge de Cluny.
MARIELLE CHABAL, WINNER OF THE CENTRE WALLONIE-BRUXELLES/PARIS SPECIAL MENTION, FOR HER PROJECT PROGRAMME OPP-OPS: L’INFILTRATION DE L’OMBRE
Marielle Chabal is developing a speculative documentary about Gaïanita, a fictional laboratory island where darkness provides the basis for another form of education in the living world: cooperative, libertarian and ecofeminist. Here, the night becomes a political condition that makes it possible to escape generalised transparency, surveillance and the extractivism of the gaze. Learning to inhabit the shadows means learning to perceive and think differently about less dominant forms of organisation. Combining analogue archives, Hi8 and VHS-C footage, LiDAR captures, 3D modelling and soundscapes, the project uses fiction as a critical tool for challenging official narratives of progress.
Marielle Chabal was born in France in 1988, she lives and works in Paris.
A transdisciplinary artist and doctoral researcher, she develops “foundational fictions”: hybrid formats bringing artists and scientists together to collectively experience desirable futures. Through role-play and immersion, Marielle Chabal approaches storytelling as a consciousness software capable of transforming the social and political sphere. Winner of the Audi Talents Award for Al Qamar, her work has notably been presented at the Palais de Tokyo, the Centre Pompidou and through the international network of her gallery, Alberta Pane.
NOMASMETAFORAS, WINNER OF THE NUITS DES FORÊTS SPECIAL MENTION, FOR THEIR PROJECT APPRENDRE À MIEUX RÊVER
The nomasmetaforas collective imagines collective dream workshops centred on mugwort, a plant associated with dreams, protection, popular knowledge and women’s medicinal traditions. Emerging from a dialogue with the Council of Traditional Doctors of Cauca, Colombia, the project explores the possibility of rebuilding connections with the living world through dreaming as a relationship between bodies, plants, territories and imaginaries. The stories emerging from these workshops will form a sound archive, reactivated in Dream Rooms, an installation for listening and meditation. In a world saturated with light, control and imposed narratives, nomasmetaforas advocates for the night as a space of opacity, slowing down and collective reinvention.
Le collectif nomasmetaforas was founded by Julián Dupont, born in France in 1985, and Clara Melniczuk, born in Colombia in 1991. they work and live between the two countries.
At the intersection of contemporary art, collective pedagogies and more-than-human thought, their research-creation practice weaves together artistic practices and ecological rituals in dialogue with Indigenous communities in Cauca. Their projects have been presented internationally at MoMA PS1, Pinacoteca de São Paulo, MALBA, the Louvre Museum, Future Ours x Art2030, the Kunsthal Charlottenborg Biennale and CCA Glasgow.
ELENA BAJO, WINNER OF THE SPECIAL PRIZE OUTSIDE THE COMPETITION – FONDATION CARMIGNAC, FOR HER PROJECT ARTEMISIA NOCTIS: A GRAMMAR OF DARKNESS
Elena Bajo imagines a sensory garden composed of nocturnally flowering plants – wild tobacco, four-o’clocks, evening primrose, night-blooming jasmine and night-flowering cacti – which become active in the darkness, with visitors finding their way through smell and sound. Moths, bats and beetles, essential actors within these nocturnal ecosystems, also become the subjects of action research conducted with naturalists. The work takes the form of a participatory moonlit performance centred on nocturnal pollinators. By defending the ecological continuity of darkness, the artist invites us to preserve the “discreet grammar” of the living world: one of scents, lunar rhythms, animal movements and ancient forms of knowledge that the night continues to shelter.
Elena Bajo was born in Madrid in 1976, she lives and works between Spain and the United States.
A transdisciplinary artist and 2026 Guggenheim Fellow, Elena Bajo creates environments described as “anarchoreographies”, combining sculpture, performance and poetry to explore plant intelligence and marginalised cosmologies. Her recent exhibitions include Manifesta 15, the Lyon Biennale and Performa, and her work has been recognised through the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Audemars Piguet Award.
LE JURY 2026
Clara Anguenot, Director of the Nuits des Forêts festival
Cathy Bouvard, Director of Ateliers Médicis
Samuel Challéat, Geographer, author of the PhD thesis Saving the Night: Light Pollution, Urban Planning and Territorial Governance
Yann Chateigné, Curator
Catherine Dobler, Director of the LAccolade Foundation
Karine Duquesnoy, Senior Civil Servant for Ecological Transition and Sustainable Development, Ministry of Culture
Alice Gandin, Director of the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
Stéphanie Pécourt, Director of the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles / Paris
Vivien Rebière, French Biodiversity Agency
SMITH, Artist
AWARDS
– The artist awarded the COAL Prize receives a grant of €12,000 and a creative residency at the heart of the Domaine de Belval, property of the François Sommer Foundation, supported by the scientific and educational teams of the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature and those of the Domaine de Belval. A true observatory of rural life and wildlife, the estate hosts selected artists each year for the relevance of their contribution to renewing the vision of the human relationship with the natural environment.
– The artist awarded the Special Jury Prize receives a grant of €3,000
– The artist awarded the Ateliers Médicis mention benefits from a residency in Clichy-sous-Bois/Montfermeil, in connection with the regional forest of Bondy.
– The artist awarded the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles/Paris mention, also known as Le Vaisseau, receives a grant of €2,000 and will be invited to exhibit at the Parisian institution.
– The artist awarded the Nuits des Forêts Special Mention receives a €3,000 grant for a creative residency in a partner forest.
– The artist awarded the Special Prize out of the Competition – Fondation Carmignac receives a €5,000 grant towards the production of a work to be presented as part of the ” La Nuit se lève” exhibition at Villa Carmignac (Porquerolles Island, France) in 2027.
