The Boghossian Foundation, custodian of Villa Empain, organizes an annual International Prize and, in 2024, awarded three prizes (€12,000 each) along with an art residency in a pristine gem of Art Deco architecture in Brussels, designed by Michel Polak. Reflecting its mission to build bridges between East and West through art, all three winning projects are exceptional — and today we’ll tell you about them.
The three prize-winning projects (created by four artists) are on view from June 10, 2025, in the Baron Empain’s secretary’s office and in the beautiful garden.
Category: Design & Crafts
One of the winners of the competition, Kim Mupangilai, is a young Congolese-Belgian designer who received the award for her Bina Chair. In Tshiluba, one of the languages of Congo, bina means “dance.” In the chair’s flowing curves, one can see the elegant silhouette of Kim herself—graceful, like an ancient figurine.
Crafted from teak wood, volcanic stone, and fibers of the raffia palm (native to Congo), the chair’s joints resemble the human body. The designer evokes the texture of African women’s curls and braids, turning the chair into a visual embodiment of “dancing furniture.”
At the heart of Kim’s concept lies the duality of the object as a reflection of her own dual identity — Congolese and Belgian.
Category: Visual Arts
The Enchanted Garden of Villa Empain will be a place of interest this summer not only for aesthetes but also for those who enjoy intellectual challenges. This is thanks to a highly relevant project by the creative duo Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler, artists and researchers who spent five years developing it. The project addresses a topic that concerns all of us today: artificial intelligence and empires — a combination that may seem unusual at first, but makes perfect sense once you spend time with their digital wall installation.
Calculating Empires (2023) is a large-scale artistic installation that explores how power has evolved from the imperial systems of the past to today’s algorithm-driven world. The wall, with its design reminiscent of early computers and punch cards, merges cartography, data visualization, and historical analysis to show how technology continues to shape and reinforce global systems of influence. The installation spans five centuries — from colonial expansion and industrial automation to modern artificial intelligence.
Through the visual language of mapping, Calculating Empires reveals how practices of data collection, surveillance, and governance once used by empires and states have transitioned into the digital era and are now embedded in everyday technologies. The work suggests that contemporary algorithms and platforms often operate under the same logic of centralization and control as historical powers. Crawford and Joler ask crucial questions: who holds power in the digital age, how is it structured, and what are the human and environmental costs of maintaining these systems?
The purpose of the project is to provide viewers with tools for critically engaging with the digital world and to encourage discussion around the need for fair and transparent governance of digital infrastructure.
One example from the installation that stood out to us — particularly due to the Russian surname — is the reference to Markov chains. When faced with a vast digital structure like this, it’s natural to look for a conceptual entry point. Calculating Empires includes the theory of Markov chains as a key example of the algorithmic models that have shaped prediction, automation, and control systems.
Andrey Markov (1856–1922), a Russian mathematician from Saint Petersburg, was the first to formally define this model in the early 20th century. He famously applied his theory to literary analysis, demonstrating that the sequence of letters in Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin could be statistically modeled. According to his findings, the likelihood of a particular letter appearing depended only on the one preceding it — not the entire context — marking one of the first applications of probabilistic methods to literature. This became an important step in the development of probability theory and computational linguistics.
Calculating Empires ultimately presents a detailed map of the political and technological landscape in which we all live. At once daunting and fascinating, it challenges us to see more clearly and think more deeply about the invisible systems shaping our present.
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In the jewellery category, the prize was awarded to Joy Harvey, an Italian artist born in 1993, whose work balances technical precision with emotional depth. Originally trained in pure chemistry at the University of Bologna, which she graduated from in 2017, Harvey later transitioned from science to the art of jewellery-making. In 2021, she founded her studio, La Luce, where she creates unique pieces that draw from Florentine goldsmithing, Armenian artisanal heritage, and digital technologies.
Her jewellery is both a personal and philosophical exploration of time, aging, beauty, and vulnerability. One of the pieces that particularly impressed the jury was Flower Wreath, a poetic composition in which polished gold elements are contrasted with unrefined brass flowers. The piece speaks to the relationship between youth and aging, the ideal and the imperfect, inviting reflection on how our society celebrates youth while often overlooking the value and complexity of age.
Harvey’s approach is fearless—through metal and flame, she addresses the invisibility that aging can bring and challenges conventional notions of beauty. Each of her creations is a one-of-a-kind narrative, where every patina and scratch contributes to a deeper story. Her award at Villa Empain acknowledges the delicacy and complexity of her work and her ability to translate cultural legacy into contemporary form through a deeply personal lens.
