Wallpaper* Design Awards 2026: artist Klára Hosnedlová wins

Czech artist Klára Hosnedlová photographed in December 2025 with her installation *Embrace* in the vast hall at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin

(Image credit: PHOTOGRAPHY: VITALI GELWICH WRITER: HANNAH SILVER)

I’m really interested in creating my own architecture, rather than working within a historical framework,’ says Czech artist Klára Hosnedlová, ahead of her first exhibition at London’s White Cube (at the Bermondsey gallery, 11 February – 29 March 2026). ‘If you are creating a new world, it’s much more difficult, because everything has to be a completely new visualisation.’

‘I love to be able to speak to those who have never been in a museum’
Klára Hosnedlová

Throughout her career, Hosnedlová has built entirely new landscapes, interweaving architectural elements with expansive embroideries, performances and sculptures, which together form vast installations. In her richly immersive worlds, Hosnedlová is drawn to both natural materials – flax, hemp, sand – as well as colder forms such as glass, For Hosnedlová, it is essential that the environments are welcoming. ‘I don’t come from an artistic family, so it is important for me to create a world that is more familiar. I love to be able to speak to those who have never been in a museum. I’m lucky that I can still speak through quite a realistic language, which is embroidery – you can see what it’s like in your hands. It is not abstract.’

art intallation — *Embrace* featured six handwoven flax and hemp tapestries, alongside fossil-like sandstone and glass sculptures and epoxy resin ‘puddles'

This tangibility was key throughout her epic recent exhibition at Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof, which used raw materials sourced from what is today the Czech Republic, but formerly Bohemia and Moravia. By drawing on these craft traditions, Hosnedlová unites references to both local folklore and, more personally, childhood memories, creating a general world of the imagination. It is a textural, raw and primal landscape that is always changing, fluctuating, living and dying.

The industrial architecture of Hamburger Bahnhof ’s hall was transformed by six vast, handwoven tapestries, made from flax, hemp and plant-based dyes and reminiscent of animal skin. Their sheer scale became a sanctuary, and one in which the visitor was encouraged to enter, walking among them to discover their own private zones. The experience Hosnedlová created was multisensory, set to a backdrop of music by performance artist Billy Bultheel.

Hosnedlová has worked with Bultheel again for the White Cube exhibition, where her utopian landscape is populated with her large-scale tapestries and sculptures. Throughout, 3D-printed concrete columns are adorned with embroideries, while large floor objects are covered in mycelium (reishi mushrooms), her first time working with the fungi. To support the living elements, the atmosphere is moist.

‘Every speaker projects a different sound. It creates one big one full of many messy noises’

‘It’s very important for me to be focused on the small details,’ says Hosnedlová. ‘But I also thought in a bigger context, about bringing in new worlds. The contrast is important. I spend some days in a little village, and then I’m in Berlin, which is such a huge city. I am always combining different materials, but it depends on the space. At Bahnhof, it was a monumental hall that used to be a train station. It’s very masculine, full of metal, with a big open space where I always felt a little bit lost. That’s why I started to think about some monumental tapestry, something that’s coming more from nature, and where you can be hidden behind. Sometimes I have a problem in museums where I am standing in front of some artworks and everybody can see me from all sides, so in my installations I create places where you can be a bit hidden.’

She has brought this tension between the heavy-duty industrial and the organic to London. ‘When I saw White Cube, I knew I wanted to create some kind of a laboratory, a stage where I could grow new sculptures,’ she adds. ‘The whole of the space here will appear to be underground. There is no natural light, and usually that’s important for my work. But in this case, it is a space to grow something. The sounds, too, appear to come from underground, with every speaker projecting a different sound. It creates one big one full of many messy noises.’

With new materials and a deeper immersion, Hosnedlová is pushing herself further than she has before. ‘If I can, I’ll push myself into something where I don’t feel 100 per cent comfortable. I love that feeling when I don’t know exactly what I’m doing.’

New work by Klára Hosnedlová will be on show from 11 February – 29 March at White Cube Bermondsey, London SE1, whitecube.com

This article appears in the February 2026 Design Awards Issue of Wallpaper* , available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 6 November. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

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Hannah Silver is a writer and editor with over 20 years of experience in journalism, spanning national newspapers and independent magazines. Currently Art, Culture, Watches & Jewellery Editor of Wallpaper*, she has overseen offbeat art trends and conducted in-depth profiles for print and digital, as well as writing and commissioning extensively across the worlds of culture and luxury since joining in 2019.