Meet the nominees for the NN Art Award 2025: II Pris Roos

For the ninth consecutive year, the NN Art Award will be presented in 2025 to a promising artist showcasing their work at Art Rotterdam. This year’s nominees are Diana Scherer (andriesse eyck galerie), Marcos Kueh (Prospects section of the Mondriaan Fund, courtesy of Galerie Ron Mandos), Pris Roos (Mini Galerie) and Bodil Ouédraogo (Prospects section of the Mondriaan Fund). The work of the four nominees will be on view at Kunsthal Rotterdam from 15 March until 11 May 2025. 

Pris Roos (1984) is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher and storyteller. Her practice moves between painting, spoken word, video, performance and installation. She explores themes like identity — including her own lived experience as a queer woman with a bicultural background — migration, (chosen) family and memory. Weaving together personal narratives with those of others, she amplifies voices of people who, like herself, navigate multiple cultures and identities. In doing so, her work forms a bridge between individual histories and a shared collective memory.

A key source of inspiration is her childhood spent in her family’s toko, a small Indonesian grocery store run by her relatives who emigrated from Indonesia to the Netherlands. For Roos, the toko is more than just a store; it is a piece of Indonesian heritage, a meeting place where different cultures converge, and where scents and colours blend. To this day, she regularly helps out in the store, both to support her parents and to remain connected to these communities. This notion of shared stories and social networks is a recurring theme in her work, where close observation and deep listening skills become essential tools. Roos works with remarkable intimacy, which is particularly striking given that she finds it more difficult to have these kinds of conversations with her own parents, who rarely speak about their family history.

Roos’ work is deeply social and narrative-driven. Her portraits and installations are not distant or detached; they are intimate reflections of the people she encounters. She frequently works with everyday materials such as cardboard, brown canvas and kraft paper, layering them in ways that lend her work a raw, textured quality, echoing the dynamic nature of the stories she tells. She combines traditional techniques with elements of street culture, pop culture and activism. Spoken word and sound also play a role in her installations, which brings them alive in a vivid way.

Can you tell us more about the work you are presenting at Art Rotterdam and Kunsthal?
The works I am presenting at Art Rotterdam and Kunsthal explore representation, gathering and everyday life. At Kunsthal, I will showcase large-scale cardboard installations depicting people in their own living spaces — individuals the audience may not know but whom I have come to know intimately through conversations and regular meetings. Together, we spoke about family, identity and key moments in their lives. To me, they are role models, the unsung heroes of the world. At Art Rotterdam, in Mini Galerie’s booth, I will present smaller works featuring various street scenes. The street has always felt like home to me — a space where so many different people come together. It reflects the everyday. In that sense, my work is quite direct and straightforward.

What are your plans for 2025?
In 2025, I plan to create my own picture book about my parents’ toko. [This year, Roos’ first children’s book PRIS - De Toko will be published by Uitgeverij de Harmonie, ed]. The story follows my mother, who suddenly disappears from the toko, prompting a search for her through a fantasy world in which the shop is transformed. The illustrations depict products from the store, such as yardlong beans, turmeric and bami soup. My work is often rooted in portraiture and my surroundings, but this time I am embracing imagination and constructing my own worlds, which feels both exciting and challenging. I also want to create life-sized installations based on these illustrations and develop an accompanying exhibition. Additionally, I have exhibitions planned in Zaandam and Paris, a visit to the Liverpool Biennial, and I will also take some time to rest.

How did you feel when you heard you were nominated for the NN Art Award?
I was surprised and honoured to be nominated alongside such incredible artists.

If you won the award, what project would you pursue immediately?
With the prize money, I would further explore my family history. Like many children of immigrants, I am deeply interested in my family's background and stories, but these are rarely spoken about. This would be an opportunity to delve deeper into that history and discover it, along with father. I would travel across Java, observing people and street scenes, engaging in conversations, and creating portraits — in the country that carries the history of my ancestors.

Pris Roos earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, including an exchange programme in Bremen, and completed her Master’s degree at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg. In 2020, she was appointed City Illustrator of Rotterdam. Her work is part of the collections of Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, the Dutch Government, and the Rotterdam City Archives. From 21 February until 11 May, her work will be featured in the exhibition ‘Collective Joy - Learning Flamboyance!’ at the prestigious Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Previously, she has exhibited at institutions such as Kunsthal Rotterdam, the Van Abbemuseum, TENT Rotterdam, Framer Framed, MAMA Rotterdam and the Amsterdam Museum.

Beyond her artistic practice, Roos is also active as a curator, activist and educator. She initiates art projects that connect communities and engages young people in her work, encouraging them to reflect on their own position and identity. Together with Hannah Jacques, she founded a travelling children's library that has been stationed at various locations in Rotterdam and The Hague. This library is filled with books and graphic novels that allow children to see themselves reflected in stories. This book collection features works on topics such as identity, gender, sexuality and climate — offering an important alternative to the predominantly white and heteronormative perspectives children are often exposed to. This not only provides them with more choice but also fosters greater awareness of themselves and the world around them.

The winner of the NN Art Award 2025 will be announced on Friday 28 March at 20:00 in Kunsthal Rotterdam. During this celebratory evening, all exhibitions, including the NN Art Award exhibition, will be freely accessible to attending guests.

Written by Flor Linckens