MANPOWER
Ascent | A Totem of Flight
The 2025 ManpowerGroup Power Award
represents a landmark moment in the award’s 40-year history:
for the first time, the commission was awarded to a woman.
For artist Nicole Landau, the achievement marked the culmination of a seven-year pursuit. Over the course of three submissions, she continued to refine the conceptual and material language of the work, ultimately securing the commission through sustained vision, experimentation, and perseverance.
Landau developed the winning proposal under unexpected circumstances. When the submission period opened for the third time, she was traveling in Mexico without access to her studio, computer, or traditional materials. Working intuitively with a paper towel roll and pieces of cardboard, she constructed an improvised maquette and recorded a presentation articulating the concept behind the work.
Inspired by the form of a hawk feather and the ancient Jera rune, the sculpture embodies higher vision, perseverance, transformation, and the capacity to rise up. Its spiraling composition and iridescent surfaces respond dynamically to light and movement, creating a contemporary totem of leadership and collective strength.
The original cardboard model evolved into a refined clear acrylic sculpture featuring 3D-printed resin feathers finished in color-shifting paint. As the work is viewed from different angles and under changing light, its surfaces transform, reinforcing the sculpture’s themes of movement, resilience, and evolving perspective.
Landau also conceived the custom presentation box, incorporating her photographic artwork into the final design and extending the visual language of the sculpture into a fully integrated presentation.
The ManpowerGroup Power Award is an exclusive limited-edition contemporary sculpture created to recognize and celebrate ManpowerGroup’s highest-performing employees for excellence in leadership, achievement, and impact. Produced in an edition of 80, the award has been presented to recipients across 65 countries worldwide. Following the success of the inaugural commission, Nicole Landau was selected to create the award for a second consecutive year in 2026.