Christa Moering Scholarship 2009
The first prize winner is the artist Nicole Ahland, who was born in Trier and lives and works in Wiesbaden.
In spring 2009, the Wiesbaden City Council decided to set up a scholarship specifically to support female artists. This has now been awarded for the first time. The scholarship is named after Wiesbaden artist and honorary citizen Christa Moering. In her honor, this year's first scholarship will go to a female visual artist. The seven-member jury, chaired by Rita Thies, Head of Cultural Affairs, agreed on Nicole Ahland after detailed consideration of the applications and intensive discussion.
The jury had 43 applications to sift through, and it became impressively clear that an exceptionally large number of good female artists live and work in Wiesbaden. Support for female artists was and is urgently needed, because although many women are active in the field of art and culture, their financial situation is worse than that of their male colleagues. This can be seen nationwide both in the area of purchases and in the payment of services. The scholarship is endowed with 5,000 euros and will be awarded annually in different categories from 2009.
Nicole Ahland, born in Trier in 1970, studied fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz from 1999 to 2005, was a research assistant there and has lived and worked in Wiesbaden for several years. She is concerned with the exploration of space and place and works with the media of photography and installation. Her works are characterized by an exciting interplay of light and shadow, emptiness and fullness, presence and absence.
Works by the newly selected scholarship holder will be exhibited at the "frauen museum wiesbaden" next year. Her photographs are considered snapshots of stillness and vastness, spaces tell of memory and transience. People appear ghostly, enraptured and unreachable, hidden behind a veil. The theme of remembering - oneself and others - and the search for traces in the past and present is a constant in the work of the "frauen museum". The museum's organizers are therefore all the more pleased to present Nicole Ahland's work as part of the Christa Moering Scholarship.