Mariia Ustiuhova
receives the 2026 Vanessa Preger McGillivray Prize from the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the City of Vienna. Ustihuova
is a graduate student in the Department of Drawing and Printmaking at the Institute of Fine Arts and Media Art at the University
of Applied Arts Vienna and is being honoured for her diploma project ‘Di Sonetti’. In the mixed-media installation supervised
by Jan Svenungsson, Ustiuhova explores synaesthetic impressions as mechanisms for transcending time. The award was presented
during the academic graduation ceremony on 30 January 2026 in the auditorium of the Angewandte.
The
jury praised the work as ‘a dreamlike celebration of life, realised in an immersive poetic space of sensory experiences and
expressed through contradictory materialities. The accompanying text blends precise childhood memories with current experiences
to show that synaesthetic experiences are part of the reality of life.’
Mariia Ustiuhova, born in Kiev in 2001, was
accepted into the Department of Drawing and Printmaking (then: Graphic Arts and Printmaking) in 2019.
"It is important
to make grief – like remembrance work – productive. The award reminds us of the prospects that were taken away from the young
art student Vanessa Preger-McGillivray by the cruel attack in Vienna's city centre. The award named after her opens up opportunities
for the future and at the same time serves as a warning against terror and violence: it counters despair with the power of
art and keeps the memory alive. I am particularly pleased that the jury awarded the prize to Mariia Ustiuhova from Ukraine,
and I wish her all the best for her artistic future," emphasises Vienna's City Councillor for Culture, Veronica Kaup-Hasler.
Since
January 2021, the Vanessa Preger McGillivray Prize, worth €3,000, has been awarded at the end of the winter semester for a
final thesis in the field of fine arts. The University of Applied Arts Vienna and the City of Vienna sponsor this award in
memory of its namesake, who was murdered on 2 November 2020 in the terrorist attack in Vienna's city centre. Vanessa Preger-McGillivray
had begun her studies at the University of Applied Arts in October 2020. The prize is intended to commemorate Vanessa and
highlight the potential of studying art, to provide inspiration and to illustrate the hopes and prospects of an artistically
fulfilling life.
