a-n members Adham Faramawy, Larry Achiampong, Jasmina Cibic and Guy Oliver are among the six shortlisted artist filmmakers announced for this year’s Film London Jarman Award.
The £10,000 prize recognises and supports artists working with moving image and celebrates the spirit of experimentation, imagination and innovation in the work of UK-based artist filmmakers. The award is inspired by visionary filmmaker Derek Jarman. Artist Sophia Al-Maria and Georgina Starr complete the shortlist.
Adham Faramawy works across a wide variety of media from computer programmes, moving image and apps to print. Their works consider how social issues become entangled with environmental issues, using movement, poetry, spoken word, and dance to tell stories about consumption, identity construction, the body and the nature of desire. Recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition at Bluecoat Liverpool and screenings at both Tate Britain and Tate Modern.
Larry Achiampong’s solo and collaborative projects employ aural and visual archives, live performance and sound to explore ideas surrounding class, cross-cultural and post-digital identity. Achiampong’s work examines his communal and personal heritage. He has exhibited, performed and presented projects at Tate Modern, Venice Biennale, Somerset House in London and Liverpool Biennial.
With a practice spanning performance, installation and film, Jasmina Cibic considers how ideologies and cultures are constructed and then framed through mechanisms such as art and architecture. Her work explores the construction of national culture and how it can be used for political aims, and looks at forms of soft power. Cibic, who represented Slovenia at the 55th Venice Biennial, was subject of a solo exhibition at BALTIC, Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead in 2018.
Guy Oliver’s moving image work is rooted within a framework of self-portraiture, and explores notions of masculinity, identity, comedy and tragedy, taking a highly personal but irreverent working approach. The work integrates and then dissects areas of popular culture. Cinema, sport, politics, popular music, stand-up comedy and art history act as the recurring subject matter. Recent presentations include Jerwood/FVU Awards 2020, London and Art Night.
Sophia Al-Maria’s cinematic videos explore, postcolonial identity, imperialism, and counter-histories. Her fractured, nonlinear works is often cast against a science fiction backdrop and explores the revision of history, the isolation of individuals through technology, and the corrosive elements of consumerism and industry. Solo exhibitions include Garage, Moscow, Whitechapel Gallery, London and Whitney Museum, New York.
Georgina Starr makes videos, sound and large-scale installation works with a focus on female identity, the otherworldly, and her longstanding interests in the visionary aspects of experimental cinema. Her projects are initiated by extensive periods of research that always involve some form of writing including scripts, lectures and poetry. Recent solo presentations include Leeds Art Gallery and Glasgow International.
This year’s shortlist jury included: Iwona Blazwick OBE, Director, Whitechapel Gallery; Amal Khalaf, Director of Programmes at Cubitt, London and Projects Curator at the Serpentine Galleries; Shaminder Nahal, Commissioning Editor, Arts and Topical, Channel 4; Tyrone Walker-Hebborn, Director, Genesis Cinema; and artist and 2020 Jarman Award Winner, Larissa Sansour.
The winner of the Jarman Award will be announced on 23 November 2021. In the run-up, work of shortlisted artists will be presented online, including on the Whitechapel Gallery website. A special weekend of screenings, discussions and performances featuring all six shortlisted artists will take place 13-14 November at Whitechapel Gallery, London.
To watch the nominees’ work see filmlondon.org.uk
Images:
1. Adham Faramawy, Skin Flick, video, 13 minutes 30 seconds, 2019.
2. Larry Achiampong, Relic 3, 4K colour video (still), 2019. © Larry Achiampong; Courtesy: the Artist and Copperfield, London.
3. Jasmina Cibic, The Gift, three channel 4K video, film still, 2021. Courtesy: the artist
4. Guy Oliver, You Know Nothing of my Work, HD Video, 2020. Courtesy: the artist
5. Sophia Al-Maria and Sin Wai Kin (fka Victoria Sin), Astral Bodies Electric, Makeup!, 2019 at Transformer: A Rebirth of Wonder, 180 The Strand. Courtesy: the artists and Project Native Informant, London
6. Georgina Starr, Quarantaine, film, 43 mins, , 2020. Courtesy: The Artist, Film Video Umbrella, Glasgow International, The Hunterian, Leeds Art Gallery & Art Fund
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