South Korean ceramic artist Jongjin Park has won the 2026 Loewe Craft Prize, announced during a ceremony at the National Gallery Singapore on May 12. Park received the award for Strata of Illusion, a ceramic sculpture that uses layered sheets of paper coated in colored porcelain slip. The work stood among 30 finalists chosen from 5,100 submissions across 133 countries and regions, with all shortlisted works on view at the museum until June 14.
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Strata of Illusion explores the tension between control and collapse. Park builds the sculpture from folded paper sheets covered in porcelain slip, then fires the form in a kiln. During firing, the paper burns away, leaving behind a ceramic body that bends, sinks, and shifts under heat and gravity. The process gives the work its unusual structure, with color, surface, and form carrying traces of compression, folding, and distortion.
The jury praised the disappearance of paper during the firing process and the imperfect shape that emerges from it. Loewe said the jury chose Park’s work for the way it challenges expectations around ceramics. Although the piece begins with porcelain, it also points toward other practices. Its use of air to hold shape recalls glassblowing, while its layered paper construction suggests bookbinding. The final object avoids a single material reading and creates a sculptural presence through that uncertainty.
Park, born in 1982, studied ceramics at Cardiff Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom, where he earned a master of arts degree. He later completed a PhD in ceramics at Kookmin University in Seoul. Alongside his studio practice, he works as an assistant professor at Seoul Women’s University. His previous recognition includes the Excellence Prize at the 2024 Gyeonggi International Ceramic Competition in Yeoju, South Korea, while his work has appeared at Design Miami and PAD London Art + Design.
Park receives a silver trophy and a 50,000-euro prize. Loewe also awarded two special mentions, each carrying 5,000 euros. One went to Baba Tree Master Weavers, a collective composed of Mary Anaba, Charity Aveamah Atuah, Christiana Anaba Akolpoka, Asakiloro Aduko, Mary Ayinbogra, Teni Ayine, Subolo Ayine, and Punka Joe, together with Spanish designer Álvaro Catalán de Ocón. Their large communal work uses elephant grass and draws from aerial imagery of circular adobe housing in Ghana’s Gurunsi region.
The second special mention went to Italian designer Graziano Visintin for Collier, a pair of necklaces made from tiny cubes built with thin sheets of gold. Visintin decorated the pieces with niello, an ancient metalworking technique. The work uses folding, welding, and melting processes connected to old goldsmithing methods, bringing historical technique into a precise geometric form.
The 2026 edition marks the ninth Loewe Craft Prize. A jury of 14 judges chose the winners, with Loewe creative directors Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez joining the panel for the first time. The shortlist covered 20 areas of practice, including ceramics, woodwork, textiles, furniture, bookbinding, glass, metal, jewelry, and lacquer. Loewe established the annual prize in 2016 under former creative director Jonathan Anderson to recognize the role of craft in contemporary culture and to connect that focus to the house’s origins as a Madrid leather-making collective.
