For the second time in a row, the Kunstmuseum Heidenheim is awarding the Roland Riegger Prize. Donated by the former mayor of the city of Heidenheim, the €1,000 award is aimed at young creative people from the region. The prize money and the honour are intended to support young people who are at the beginning of their careers or creative studies on their way to professionalism.

In 2022, the museum will award the prize to Arjann Jacob Härtner. The Hermaringer graduated from the Werkgymnasium in 2019 and was studying illustration in his fourth semester at the University of Communication and Design (HfK+G) in Stuttgart when the prize was awarded.

The decisive factor for the award was Härtner’s project “sculptural flesh”, which was created as part of a seminar under the direction of Prof. Michaela Köhler. The starting point for the project is the examination of one’s own body. Laced with nylon, digitally altered, mirrored and enlarged, Härtner declares it to be a sculpture and thus gets rid of negative connotations. In the exhibition, the young artist interweaves the photos with text elements that make clear the consequences of bullying people who are perceived as too fat, and calls for people not to engage in fat-shaming, but to accept their counterparts as they are.