The Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents has announced its 2026 winner. Now in its ninth edition, the annual prize recognized Japanese artist Akari Takenobu for her haunting photographic series, “Threshold,” selected from ten international finalists.
Created in 2018 through a partnership between Dior, LUMA Arles, and the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (ENSP Arles), the award supports emerging photographers and visual artists from leading art schools around the world. This year’s finalists represented institutions across France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates, offering an early glimpse at the next generation shaping contemporary image-making.
The 2026 jury was chaired by British photographer David Sims, alongside French photographer Vasantha Yogananthan, Julie Jones, Director of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, as well as founding members Maja Hoffmann, Founder and Executive President of LUMA Foundation andLUMA Arles, and Peter Philips, Creative and Image Director for Dior Makeup.
Face to Face
Installation view of the 2026 Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents exhibition at the Lampisterie, Parc des Ateliers, LUMA Arles. Courtesy of Dior.
Each edition begins with a single prompt. This year’s theme, “Face to Face,” was intentionally left open to interpretation.
Rather than arriving at similar conclusions, the finalists responded with remarkably different bodies of work. Some approached the theme through dreamlike narratives, others through social commentary, while several explored questions surrounding identity, gender, memory, or the body itself. The diversity of perspectives ultimately became one of the exhibition‘s greatest strengths.
The ten shortlisted projects are currently on view at Lampisterie in LUMA Arles‘ Parc des Ateliers, bringing together photography, video, installation, collage, and moving image into one exhibition dedicated to emerging artistic voices.
A Body Between Worlds
Installation view of the 2026 Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents exhibition at the Lampisterie, Parc des Ateliers, LUMA Arles. Courtesy of Dior.
Takenobu’s “Threshold” captivated the jury through its unsettling yet deeply poetic exploration of the body.
Currently completing her master’s degree at the Tokyo University of the Arts, the artist has developed a multidisciplinary practice spanning photography, collage, and installation. She repeatedly investigates invisible worlds and the hidden structures that shape our understanding of reality.
“And sometimes by deconstructing the very form of the self,” Akari Takenobu explains, “it might be possible to introduce unexpected fractures in the frozen appearance of reality.”
At first glance, “Threshold” appears to consist of six black-and-white photographic collages of fragmented bodies. Looking closer, however, the work becomes something else entirely. It attempts to reveal what normally remains concealed, pulling hidden presences to the surface.
Akari Takenobu Reclaiming the Invisible
Akari Takenobu portrait, Photo by Andrea Cenetiempo for Christian Dior Parfums. Courtesy of the subject and Dior Parfums.
Akari Takenobu, photograph from the “Threshold” series, 2026. Courtesy of the artist and Dior.
Takenobu’s fascination with the unseen began during childhood after a series of paranormal experiences that profoundly shaped her understanding of the world. Rather than allowing those memories to remain rooted in fear, she transformed them into the foundation of her artistic practice.
“I explore the boundary between my own existence and what are often called the ‘invisible others’—spirits, ghosts or presences that cannot be directly perceived,” she says. “What separates us? One possible distinction lies in materiality, that is, the possession of a physical body.”
Photography itself becomes part of that investigation.
Installation view of the 2026 Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents exhibition at the Lampisterie, Parc des Ateliers, LUMA Arles. Courtesy of Dior.
Akari Takenobu first photographs her own body before stripping away its physical coherence through cutting, layering, and reconstruction. Individual fragments are rearranged into unfamiliar anatomies that hover somewhere between human and apparition. She describes this process as a kind of “simulated death,” where the body is dismantled before being reassembled into a new form.
The resulting figures feel suspended between reality and the unknown.
Yet despite their unsettling appearance, the works never rely on horror. Instead, surrealism becomes a language of healing. The fragmented body transforms into an act of reconstruction—a visual reclaiming of experiences that once inspired fear but have since become a source of creative agency.
Following its presentation at Lampisterie, “Threshold” will travel to the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris in early 2027, allowing a wider audience to encounter one of this year’s most compelling emerging artistic voices.
Akari Takenobu, photograph from the “Threshold” series, 2026. Courtesy of the artist and Dior.
Akari Takenobu, photograph from the “Threshold” series, 2026. Courtesy of the artist and Dior.
