Chiara Bersani was announced as the 2025 winner of ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art on Saturday, September 13.
The 2025 shortlist comprised three celebrated artists from across the globe: Chiara Bersani (Italy), Harold Offeh (United Kingdom) and SJ Norman (Australia).
ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art is the world’s only international prize dedicated to live art. The prize, at 30,000 EUR, is one of the richest in the arts. The winning artist receives a cash prize of 15,000 EUR and the same amount in the form of a production grant for bringing a new work to the ANTI Festival in two years. The prize is funded by the Saastamoinen Foundation.
In 2025, Marta Keil (Poland/Netherlands) worked as the Chair of Jury, and the other members of the jury were Camille Barton (UK) and Brian Lobel (UK/US).
The jury considered the nominees’ work from the past few years through documentation—and experienced their phenomenal live works during the 2025 ANTI—Contemporary Art Festival.
The jury states of the winner:
“Chiara Bersani’s work persistently transforms the live art field by questioning how we look at the stage, what we consider to be a stage—and whom we look at it with. Chiara shows us that the body is inherently political when situated in public space.
Her fierce artistic and curatorial practice keeps enchanting public spaces while raising urgent questions: who do these spaces truly belong to? How is our gaze shaped, and what imaginaries does it reinforce? We have observed how at times she becomes a gentle unicorn, at others she chooses to work with the figure of a zombie—always transforming the ways we look at reality, or what we tend to imagine the reality is.
We thank Chiara for intertwining exceptionally beautiful artistic interventions with ongoing activism to disrupt ableism, while empowering disabled artists to thrive within the live art space. While creating spaces of belonging, Chiara Bersani gives us hope for worlds where tenderness, strength, rage and justice coexist.”
