From Nigerian Guinness factories to the British countryside via small German towns and distant galaxies, this year’s Film London Jarman award nominees take viewers on a dazzling tour of the world – and beyond.
The £10,000 prize, which is named after groundbreaking film-maker Derek Jarman and recognises British artists who work with moving images, has a reputation for rewarding burgeoning talent within the UK art scene. Now in its 16th year, previous names on the shortlist have included Heather Phillipson, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Monster Chetwynd, Oreet Ashery, Project Art Works and Charlotte Prodger.
This year’s finalists include 29-year-old writer and director Ayo Akingbade, whose 2022 film The Fist chimes with the clinking bottle lines of the Guinness brewery outside Lagos – the first to be built beyond Ireland and the UK – and uses the setting to examine globalisation, industrialisation and the politics of the workplace. West Africa is also the setting for another nominee, Sierra Leonean poet and artist Julianknxx, whose work combines the written word with footage of the Atlantic Ocean to tell stories of migration, colonialism and the Black experience.
Closer to the UK yet no less political is nominee Andrew Black’s 2023 piece On Clogger Lane, a sometimes ghostly tour through Yorkshire’s Washburn valley and time itself. Alighting at Menwith Hill – the RAF base known as “the largest electronic monitoring system in the world” – it questions how the ancient British landscape can be utilised for the enforcement of American capitalism.
Elsewhere, Israeli-born Karen Russo creates a claustrophobic experience combining architectural footage with ominous soundtracks, while Yorkshire’s Rehana Zaman puts conversation and community at the forefront of her practice. Animator Sophie Koko Gate completes the list. Her DayGlo 2021 film Hotel Kalura – “made during lockdown in a wardrobe” – exudes surreal eroticism and features an extraterrestrial cocktail bar. No less strange, perhaps, than her previous work, 2018’s Slug Life, which told the story of a woman who develops a penchant for the slimy creatures.
Speaking on behalf of this year’s jury, curator Matthew Barrington said: “This shortlist continues to reflect the fluid, boundary-pushing work being made within the ever-growing field of artists working with moving images in the UK. The poetic, socially conscious, and singular nature of much of the work connects both to the legacies of previous awardees as well as that of Derek Jarman, and his large body of politically engaged work.”
The winner of the award will be announced on 20 November 2023 during a ceremony at the Barbican Centre in London. The work of the shortlisted artists will be going on a nationwide tour in the run-up to the ceremony, including dates at Nottingham Contemporary, Bristol’s Spike Island, Cardiff’s g39, Glasgow’s LUX Scotland and Eastbourne’s Towner Art Gallery.
