Karola Braga has been selected for her project proposal Bloom of the Night
Germany
Therme Art is pleased to announce Karola Braga as the Art Senses Artist of the Year 2026, selected under this year’s curatorial theme, Sensing the Invisible, and entering a six-month mentorship with the Tokyo/London-based artist duo A.A.Murakami.
Developed by Therme Art with support from Therme Group, Art Senses is a recurring mentorship programme dedicated to expanding the sensory dimensions of artistic practice. Each edition is shaped by an invited artist-mentor and distinguished jury, proposing a focused curatorial lens through which one artist is selected for a six-month mentorship.
For its inaugural edition, Sensing the Invisible is guided by A.A.Murakami’s pioneering sensory practice. Known for immersive installations that merge science, technology, and art, the duo create bespoke systems that render intangible forces momentarily perceptible—through bubbles, fog rings, scent clouds, plasma, and vapour. Their work heightens awareness of ephemerality, environmental fragility, and the unseen dynamics that shape perception.
The 2026 edition centres on artistic practices that extend beyond the dominance of sight to embrace embodied, multisensory experience.
The winning proposal
Selected for the clarity and conceptual rigour of her proposal, Karola Braga will develop Bloom of the Night, an immersive atmospheric installation that explores how perception reorganises when atmosphere—rather than visual clarity—structures space. Instead of presenting an object to be observed, the work unfolds as a non-directional sensory field experienced through attention, movement, and duration.
Drawing from the Guarani Mbya concept of desabrochar da noite—the “blooming” or unfolding of night—Braga approaches night not as absence, but as a temporal condition in which vitality becomes perceptible through scent, airflow, and vibration. Translating this understanding into an architectural environment, the installation proposes a space in which hierarchy dissolves, and orientation emerges gradually through atmospheric cues.
Olfaction operates as the primary temporal layer. A continuous humid earth accord establishes an atmospheric ground, from which intermittent presences emerge: dama da noite (nocturnal bloom), pitanga, and jabuticaba in fermentation. Diffusion is calibrated to prevent saturation, allowing scent to behave as drift rather than signal. Low-velocity airflow carries these layers through space, while light remains below dominance thresholds, encouraging gradual visual adaptation.
Conceived as a form of perceptual care, Bloom of the Night proposes wellbeing not as comfort, but as the capacity to remain present within uncertainty. By recalibrating atmosphere rather than introducing spectacle, the work invites a mode of sensing grounded in duration, drift, and embodied orientation.
During the six-month mentorship, the proposal will be developed in dialogue with A.A.Murakami through environmental modelling and atmospheric calibration, refining the integration of scent, airflow, and light into a scalable installation.
About Karola Braga
Karola Braga is an artist and olfactory researcher whose practice investigates scent as a critical, poetic, and political medium. Drawing on the cultural history of smell and interdisciplinary sensory studies, her work explores olfaction as structure, gesture, and ancestral technology. Engaging with non-retinal strategies, material poetics, and experiential forms across modern and contemporary art, Braga creates installations using scent, smoke, and atmospheric compositions. Through these sensory environments, she positions the olfactory as a site of memory, embodiment, and imagination, challenging the visual dominance of contemporary art and opening space for alternative modes of perception. Learn more about her work at karolabraga.com.
Mentorship and award
As the Art Senses Artist of the Year 2026, Karola Braga will receive:
–A 10,000 EUR financial award to further develop the project
–Up to six months of tailored mentorship with A.A.Murakami
–Advisory supports from the jury
–A dedicated visibility strategy across Therme Art platforms
–Opportunities to present work within Therme Art’s partner venues
–Technical and feasibility consultation from Therme Group specialists
Therme Group contributes specialised expertise to support the project’s development, spanning architectural design, engineering integration, material innovation, sustainable technologies, and the integration of living systems within artistic environments.
Selection process
Karola Braga was selected following a rigorous process that began with more than 600 international open call applications. From these submissions, three artists were shortlisted in recognition of the strength and clarity of their practices: Karola Braga, Bao Rong, and Tanya Harris. Each shortlisted artist received a 1,000 EUR award and six weeks to develop a proposal responding to Sensing the Invisible. The final selection of the Art Senses Artist of the Year 2026 was made jointly by the mentor and jury.
The 2026 jury comprised: Tino Sehgal, artist; Jane Withers, curator and design consultant; Marc Spiegler, cultural leader and former Global Director of Art Basel; Fatoş Üstek, curator and writer.
Programme vision
The mentorship period will unfold from April to October 2026, culminating in a final presentation through Therme Art’s channels and partner venues.
Art Senses reflects Therme Art’s broader commitment to supporting artistic practices that engage the senses as pathways to individual and collective reflection. The programme is founded on three core principles: wellbeing, which fosters sensory artistic practices that nurture mindfulness and environmental awareness; immersion, which encourages artworks designed to envelop audiences through multisensory, spatial, or participatory elements; and expanded communities, which extend cultural engagement beyond conventional art spaces. Through this vision, Art Senses seeks to position sensory art as a catalyst for new forms of perception, connection, and collective experience.
Learn more at artsenses.art.
