Bridging past and present in a new artwork, the 2025 Artist of the Year announced by The Princess Estelle Cultural Foundation draws inspiration from royal history. Born in 1972, in Poland, Monika Sosnowska is one of Europe’s most important contemporary artists. Recognised for her architectural installations and sculptures mirroring social circumstances marked by transition, Sosnowska looks for inspiration in locations and buildings that have seen their functions changed or lost completely.

'Museum', this year's monumental sculpture, explores a royal museum project to be created by King Karl XIV Johan, the first of the Bernadotte dynasty, in 1830, but which never materialised. Eleven marble pieces that have been waiting patiently for almost 200 years in storage will be given a second life by being integrated into six free-standing concrete structures, cast on site. The units can be seen as traces or memories of a building; a wall section, a portal, a pillar or a staircase. The five-metre-high composition is open and fragmented as if the non-existent museum were under construction or in ruins.

“Monika Sosnowska’s sculpture for Royal Djurgården is based on a story that very few people are familiar with. We look forward to bringing history to life through this unique and magnificent installation. Karl XIV Johan’s art museum never materialised, but we are extremely grateful that Monika Sosnowska’s Museum is now being realised,” says Sara Sandström, Executive Director of the Princess Estelle Cultural Foundation.

The work Museum for the Princess Estelle Sculpture Park will be Sosnowska’s first public work in the Nordic region and it will be inaugurated on June 3rd, 2025. Sosnowska’s works have been displayed at Centre Pompidou, Serpentine Gallery, Hayward Gallery, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Sculpture Center New York, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw and Kunstmuseum Basel, and others. Sosnowska represented Poland at the Venice Biennale in 2007 and has participated in the Biennale on several other occasions.

The Princess Estelle Cultural Foundation (PREKS) was founded in 2019 at the initiative of the Crown Princess Couple with the mission to promote cultural activities in Sweden, highlighting the Royal Family’s conviction that art and cultural activities are essential to an open, modern society. The first five permanent artworks in the Princess Estelle Sculpture Park are by Alice Aycock, Elmgreen & Dragset, Yinka Shonibare CBE, Charlotte Gyllenhammar, and Giuseppe Penone.