Nabla Yahya Wins 2023 Richard Mille Art Prize

Nabla Yahya, an Abu Dhabi-based artist with a Kashmiri dad and a Keralite mom, just snagged the 2023 Richard Mille Art Prize. Her work explores materials and tackles significant topics like colonial legacies, labor exploitation, and dispossession. After studying architecture in London, she returned to Dubai and spent four years working with Lawrence Abu Hamdan. In 2019, she received the Sheikha Salama SEAF fellowship. Her video piece, 'The Pandemic Album' (2020–22), was created for the 2020 Global Art Forum and later shown in Portrait of a Nation II. For the Richard Mille prize, she created 'SoftBank' (2023) at Louvre Abu Dhabi, addressing forced labor in the Suez Canal’s construction. Yahya also collaborated with Mati Jhurry on a sculpture reflecting cabin crew experiences, and plans to continue her research on 19th-century topics while connecting with her community.