Aesthetica Announces 2025 Award Winners Across Art, Film, Writing, and Music

Aesthetica announced its award winners for 2025, highlighting new talent across various creative fields. The exhibition at York Art Gallery showcased 25 shortlisted artists utilizing a range of media. Tobi Onabolu, a filmmaker and artist from London now residing in Grand Popo, Benin Republic, received the Main Prize for his work Danse Macabre, which delves into themes of spirituality and mental health through a combination of sound, text, and movement. The Emerging Art Prize was awarded to Sam Metz for Porosity, a sculptural piece that captures sensory experiences of the Humber Estuary through light-refracting yellow structures, reflecting neurodivergent and disability narratives. JD Donnelly’s documentary The Hold, featuring free-diving champion Alice Hickson, won the Best of Fest award at the Aesthetica Film Festival. Christina Hutchins earned the poetry prize for Practicing the Saving, while Cait Kneller won the short fiction prize for The Pink House. The festival also introduced a new music competition, the New Music Stage, in collaboration with TALENTBANQ, Caffè Nero, and Imagesound at York Theatre Royal, awarding the breakthrough act Dilettante, noted by MOJO and featured at SXSW and The Great Escape. The winners were revealed on December 31, 2025, with submissions now open for upcoming cycles.