Ruth Foundation Names 2026 Ruth Award Recipients
73Dec. 24, 2025
TheRuth Foundation for the Artshas revealed the five winners of its Ruth Award: Yuji Agematsu, Ranu Mukherjee, Will Rawls, Ellen Sebastian Chang, and Anna Martine Whitehead. The prize was inaugurated in 2024 and is given in recognition of North American artists who “are accelerating the field forward, building deeper relationships and connections across communities, and developing artistic approaches to structural change.” The honor includes an unrestricted $100,000 grant, to be disbursed over two years.
The Kanagawa, Japan–born Agematsu is known for his miniature sculptures made from bits of discarded trash found on the streets of New York, where he lives. Mukherjee, a native of Boston, makes highly saturated hybrid works in painting, moving image, and installation. Rawls, also from Boston, is a choreographer whose work investigates themes including language and identity. The Seattle-born Sebastian Chang is a writer, director, and arts educator known for work centering the experiences of Black women. Whitehead, who hails from Durham, North Carolina, is an interdisciplinary artist exploring topics such as queerness, marginalized bodies, and systems of violence.
“Each year, we receive a multitude of nominations that guide us towards the most inspiring and thought-provoking artists and practices today,” said Ruth Foundation program director Kim Nguyen in a statement. “Our world is better and more complex with artists in it, and this award acknowledges the necessity of supporting rigorous creative practice, critical thinking, and the freedom of artistic expression. It is an honor to reward this year’s artists for being responsive and empathetic, for their dedication to emergent strategies, for their constant pursuit of the big idea. We hope that this recognition carries them onwards into the future—we need them more than ever.”