Four alumni receive Northern stipends

From the Hunze to the Danube, from the body to AI: four promising Northern artists receive the Groninger Visual Arts Stipends and Noordenaars Stipends 2026.

The Groninger Visual Arts Stipends consist of two categories: Land, for a regional project focused on one’s own surroundings in Groningen or Northern Netherlands, and Horizon for a project that is developed partly outside our national borders. The Noordenaars Stipends also name two promising young makers from the three Northern provinces. In total, four artists receive time, money and guidance to make new work and further develop their artistic practice. The winners are Samantha Pellarini and Radina Kordova for the Groninger Visual Arts Stipends. Lily Dollner and Babak Modarresi are awarded the Noordenaars Stipends. They received the prize today during a ceremony presented by alderwoman for culture Janette Bosma (Municipality of Groningen).

About the winners

Samantha Pellarini (Venezuela, 1994) receives the Groninger Visual Arts Stipend Land for her research project Hunze and other stories: There is a river flowing under my house!. That began with the discovery of the historical course of the river Hunze under her home in Groningen. With this project, Pellarini connects personal experience to broader social and ecological issues, such as climate change, spatial planning and responsibility for future landscapes.

Radina Kordova (Bulgaria, 1994) receives the Groninger Visual Arts Stipend Horizon. With From the source to the mouth and everything in between she plans to walk 3000 km along the Danube. Starting at the source in the Black Forest in Germany to the mouth of the Black Sea in Romania, crossing seven countries. With this research and performance project, Kordova approaches the Danube as a more-than-human entity that connects cultural, historical and geographical layers.

Lily Dollner (IE/UK, 2000) receives the Noordenaars Stipend. In the coming year, Dollner will focus on deepening her performance practice, in which she questions our obsession with ‘productivity’ through absurd actions, and celebrates futility. She examines the relationship between object, labour and body as inseparable elements that relate to the concepts of value, effort and time. With this conceptual framework, Dollner develops the ‘Labour-Body-Object theory’ as a performance score and foundation for her work.

Babak Modarresi (Iran, 1996) receives the Noordenaars Stipend. In a study of the phenomenon ‘Jamais Vu’ (translated: never seen, a term from psychology, the opposite of Déjà Vu) Modarresi looks at the alienating new realities that arise online in the age of AI. The archive of underground and niche Iranian web content that he has built up over the years forms the basis for experimenting with new virtual and material forms of presentation.

The winners were selected by professional expert juries. With 75 submissions, the juries see an impressive cross-section of the strength and diversity of makers based in the North. In the selection, not only the quality of the work weighed, but above all the developmental question of who can use the stipend most meaningfully. All four will participate in Artist in Space in the coming year, the talent development programme for visual artists in Northern Netherlands, made possible by We The North and the Mondriaan Fund. They are guided in this by professionals from the Noordenaars, the network of 17 presentation institutions and art initiatives in Northern Netherlands.

More about the winners

Website Samantha Pellarini
Website Radina Kordova
Website Lily Dollner
Website Babak Modarresi

In addition to the winners, the following artists were nominated: 

Land: Sojung Lee, Micha van der Molen 
Horizon: Marina Sulima & Marijke Klamer, Klaudija Yliate 
Noordenaars stipendia: Lorenzo Modestini, Karina Puuffin