According to the jury: 'The consistently high standard of his works gave him the edge'

On March 8th 2017 the official awards presentation for the sonotopia student competition took place in Bonn’s Kunstmuseum. A total of 62 works from students from the following institutions were experienced on site and evaluated by a jury over the course of 2016: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (Den Haag), HBKsaar (Saarbrücken), HBK Braunschweig, UdK Berlin (Sound Studies), Bauhaus-Universität / HfM Weimar. 

The jury of the student competition by invitation for installation-based sound art bonn hoeren – sonotopia 2017 has awarded the following prizes: 
First prize: Falco Pols (NL) – KABK Den Haag 
Award of distinction: Natalia Bustamante (CO/DE) – UdK Berlin Abt. Sound Studies Fritjof Mangerich (DE) – HBK Braunschweig 
Honorary mentions: Katharina Bévand (ES/DE) – UdK Berlin Abt. Sound Studies, Frank Jung (DE) – HBKsaar, François-Xavier Loucheur (FR/DE) – UdK Berlin Abt. Sound Studies, Alexander Pospischil (DE) – Bauhaus-Universität / HfM Weimar

In the third competition for students of sound art, prize money totaling 10,000 Euros was awarded to the finalist for the realization of a new sound installation to be premiered at the 2017 edition of Beethovenfest Bonn.

Excerpt from the jury statement: 
“(…) of the 62 students whose works we had the privilege of experiencing in situ in 2016, the third year of the competition, we were most impressed by Falco Pols, Natalia Bustamente and Fritjof Mangerich for their capacity to explore and – by engaging with the sounds of the everyday and extraordinary spaces that slink around us like ghosts – to open up to themselves and us realms otherwise »inaudible« or »unfathomable«. After long and intense discussions we unanimously agreed to award the first prize to Falco Pols. The consistently high standard of his works gave him the edge. An award of distinction goes to both Natalia Bustamante and Fritjof Mangerich for their art works. We found all three artists at once stimulating and promising. (…)”

An expert jury was assembled in 2016 to judge the competition, consisting of Catherine Nichols (independent curator), Stefan Rummel (city sound artist bonn 2014) and Carsten Seiffarth (curator aund project director of bonn hoeren, among others). 
Starting in spring 2016, the members of the jury traveled to european art, music and media academies in order to attend their semester-end student exhibitions and other group exhibitions from students. Each jury member was then permitted to nominate one or more candidates from each academy for participation in the competition on the basis of their own personal experience of the students’ artistic work. These candidates were then asked to submit extensive application materials for consideration at the final jury meeting in the end of 2016. In this meeting, the jury then selected the first-prize winner for 2017, also awarding two further runner-up prizes and four honorary mentions for outstanding artistic achievement.