15. Juni Fonden Honorary Award 2026: Aase Nielsen

Aase Nielsen is one of three recipients of the 15. Juni Fonden’s 15JFEmerging Artist Award 2026, which includes—among other things—an 11-month development programme at Art Hub Copenhagen. Aase Nielsen was selected based on her graduation project, Gudesange (Songs of the Gods), which the artist herself presents in this video.

In the music and film work Gudesange, Aase Nielsen explores Old Norse cultural heritage, as well as the narratives, voices, and concepts that were preserved—or suppressed—during the transition to Christianity.

Jury member, author, and art critic Maria Kjær Themsen writes about the work: “Gudesange reminds us that cultural history consists not only of what has been told, but also of what was silenced into oblivion. The work opens a space where the Norse past does not appear as a romanticized or necessarily distant origin, but rather as an ongoing battleground for language, gender, power, and memory.”

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ABOUT THE PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN AHC & 15. JUNI FONDEN
Sharing a vision to promote and support the practices of emerging visual artists, AHC and 15. Juni Fonden entered into a three-year partnership in 2025 regarding the foundation’s award for recent visual arts graduates in Denmark: the 15JFEmerging Artist Award.

Each year, the foundation—with the assistance of an external professional jury—selects three visual artists who, based on their graduation projects from Danish visual arts academies, receive a prize of DKK 50,000 and an 11-month residency at AHC. A residency and development programme offering artists their own studio, access to professional workshops, a professional programme comprising meetings with curators, excursions, workshops, and mentoring, as well as the opportunity to become part of AHC’s interdisciplinary community.

For 2026, the recipients were selected by a jury consisting of Maria Kjær Themsen, author and art critic; Mikkel Bogh, professor at the University of Copenhagen and the Center for Practice-based Art Studies; and Mai Misfeldt, author and art critic.

The video was produced by Denke Studio.
Directed by Davy Denke.
Edited by Jacob Schill.