A two-day, custom Royal College of Art educational programme for the 2025 winners of the CHANEL Next Prize, held at the RCA Battersea campus, created in collaboration with Chanel and delivered by experienced academics from the School of Arts and Humanities.
At a glance
This two-day, custom-made RCA education programme, led by Professor Chantal Faust, Dean of the School of Arts & Humanities, was delivered at the RCA Battersea campus in London from 29–30 October 2025.
The biennial prize is awarded to international contemporary artists who are redefining their disciplines. Each of the prize winners will receive €100,000 in funding, allowing them to fully realise their most ambitious artistic projects.
The prize marks the latest chapter in CHANEL’s century-long commitment to the arts – a legacy that began with Gabrielle Chanel’s support of avant-garde pioneers, from Salvador Dalí to Jean Cocteau.
As part of the prize, to mark the culmination of the two year programme, the winners attend a two-day education programme hosted by the RCA.
The international winners work across disciplines including film, game design and the performing and visual arts.
- Tolia Astakhishvili Visual artist
- Sam Eng Game developer
- Ho Tzu Nyen Visual artist
- Fox Maxy Filmmaker and Visual artist
- Camae Ayewa Poet and Musician
- Dalton Paula Visual artist and Educator
- Anna Thorvaldsdottir Composer
- Davóne Tines Singer and Creator
Members of the jury included the Chinese Artist Cao Fei, the British Actor Tilda Swinton, the leading curators Hans Ulrich Obrist and Legacy Russell. The partnership was overseen by Yana Peel, Global Head of Arts and Culture at Chanel.
Key details
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Course structure
Throughout the programme, the Next Prize winners engaged in immersive professional and personal development, featuring talks and workshops led by renowned RCA academics. The agenda was shaped to encourage thoughtful exchange, with interactive sessions and tailored content at the forefront of contemporary artistic practice.
Seven RCA academics and five guest practitioners were invited to lead sessions. These included Articulation, Wants and Needs session with Dr Harold Offeh (RCA), Questioning Institutional Ecologies with Professor Victoria Walsh and Dr Ben Cranfield (RCA); Enhancing Your Artistic Career And Practice with Dr Nadia Danhash and Augusta Critchley (InnovationRCA); and a lecture and conversation in the RCA Visualisation Lab with Professor Johnny Golding (RCA).
Throughout the programme there were four main objectives:
- Collective learning and meaningful dialogue, championing creativity, authenticity, and individual agency.
- To develop more effective communication skills on diverse global contexts, empowering participants to navigate an ever-evolving world with confidence.
- To deepen understanding of business strategy, growth, and sustainable practice within creative industries.
- To engage with cutting-edge research and artistic innovation within a postgraduate art school context, to inform and enrich professional practice.
Course outcome
The 2025 CHANEL Next Prize winners received world-class professional and personal development from a programme focused on elevating impact by adapting communication skills for diverse, global audiences, developing business management, growth and sustainability insights and forging new connections and experiences.
Alongside the education programme, CHANEL ran a Studio Project with Sculpture MA students to design a tabletop sculpture that is given to the CHANEL Next Prize winners to mark the end of their two-year journey.
About Custom Executive Education at the RCA
Through our portfolio of innovation masterclasses and workshops, the RCA provides senior-level professionals and business leaders with critical business skills. We deliver courses for businesses, organisations and universities on design thinking, service design, creative leadership, disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship, human-centred design, artificial Intelligence and healthcare design.
We can tailor the curriculum for a day, a week, or several weeks over the course of a year with interrelated projects. Courses can be delivered online, on-campus, hybrid or at partner organisations. Previous courses have been delivered in Dubai, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Germany and Mexico.
Find out more about RCA custom courses.
Please get in contact with us if you would like to discuss developing a custom programme:
Hattie Allen, Executive Education Manager
