Civil Engineering student Friederike Horbrügger exhibits art installation in the Neue Nationalgalerie under her artist name Rike Horb

Friederike Horbrügger, known by her artist name Rike Horb, is taking part in this year's "Festival of Future Nows" at the Neue Nationalgalerie. This renowned festival returns more than ten years after its first edition in 2014 and will take place in the iconic building by Mies van der Rohe from the 31st of October to the 2nd of November, 2025. For the 3rd time, Rike Horb is part of an impressive artistic programme that brings together around 100 international talents - both young female artists and established positions. During the festival, performative, experimental and participatory works will transform the interior and exterior space of the museum into a dynamic field for artistic encounters and visions. Visitors can expect a variety of performances, sound works, dance and workshops that invite them to actively engage with the artworks.

Rike Horb is represented at the "Festival of Future Nows" with the sculpture ZStV in the outdoor area. The sculpture consists of bricks wrapped in steel. In her experimental field, Rike Horb combines reinforcing steel with NF bricks to create a fictitious building material. She plays with the idea of hybrid construction. The title stands for "brick-steel composite" and joins the ranks of conventional composite construction methods. The work invites us to reflect on building heritage, functionality and the urgency of sustainable construction methods.

Born in Berlin in 1988, Rike Horb has made a name for herself through her innovative work in the fields of kinetic installations and performative sculpture. Rike Horb studied Fine Arts at the Universität der Künste (UdK), where she graduated as a master student of Olafur Eliasson at the Institute for Spatial Experiments and subsequently joined the artist group "diese Frau".

Her CV includes numerous important awards and scholarships that have shaped her artistic development. These include winning the Berlin Art Prize in 2015, the Goldrausch Künstlerinnen Stipendium 2016, and the Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn scholarship in 2020. In 2018, she was nominated for the Ars Viva prize for young artists.

In her work, Rike Horb explores the tension between human movement, physical strength and architectural structures. Her well-known performative installations, such as "Gummimauer / flexible walls", represent an experimental exploration of the flexibility of masonry by incorporating dynamics into static structures. In her performances "Karatetalk", she creates fascinating dialogues between her own body and solid materials in order to explore the power and immediacy of the human being in a structurally defined space.

Since 2020, Rike Horb has been expanding her knowledge and skills in the bachelor's degree programme in Civil Engineering, which allows her to combine her artistic work with technical and constructive aspects. Congratulations to Rike Horb on her remarkable development and ongoing contributions to the art world.