Tanka Fonta Receives 2026 Wi Di Mimba Wi Prize with €30,000 Grant

Tanka Fonta has been named the recipient of the 2026 Wi Di Mimba Wi Prize, a biennial grant established in 2021 by AKB Stiftung and SAVVY Contemporary for artists of colour based in Germany. The award includes a €30,000 grant, additional funding for new artwork creation, and curatorial support. Fonta, a visual artist, composer, poet, writer, instrumentalist, and philosopher born in Buea, Cameroon, explores the psychology of perception in his work, which has been exhibited globally at venues including the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, HKW Berlin, SAVVY Contemporary Berlin, Kustverein Hannover, Goodman Gallery Cape Town, the Goethe Institute, and the National Museum in Yaoundé. He was selected from a shortlist that also featured Jessica Ekomane, Nnenna Onuoha, Lerato Shadi, and Sarnt Utamachote. The jury, comprising Alya Sebti (curator at HKW Berlin), Antje Majewski (artist and professor), Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (curator, writer, and director of HKW Berlin), Mirjami Schuppert (curator and prize coordinator for AKB Stiftung), and Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock (executive managing co-director at SAVVY Contemporary), praised Fonta's work in a statement, noting that his pieces create space for interconnection and togetherness, unfolding as a field of vibrations where image, sound, and poetic gestures resonate with living and ancestral memory. His work collates traces, presences, and temporalities into open, flux compositions attuned to subtle frequencies.