Film London Jarman Award 2017 Weekend

1:00pm Screening of part 2 of the Jarman Award Touring Programme 2017 (57min)

-Marianna Simnett, The Needle and the Larynx, 2016, 15min
-Oreet Ashery, Revisiting Genesis – Episode 2, 2016, 8min
-Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Rubber Coated Steel, 2016, 22min
-Melanie Manchot, Out of Bounds (A), 2016, 5min

2:00pm Introduction

2:15pm Matter from Memory: Art at the intersection of science, journalism and advocacy
Lawrence Abu Hamdan in conversation with Chisenhale Gallery’s director Polly Staple

3:00pm On Botox, Gender and Fairy Tales
Screening of Worst Gift (2017) followed by a discussion between Marianna Simnett, curator and writer Lucia Pietroiusti and voice surgeon and singer Dr Declan Costello [N.B. Marianna Simnett’s participation is enabled via live web link]

4:00pm  Break

4:30pm NoNothing- collaborative storytelling in the dark
Presented by Oreet Ashery. Sensory, informal and intimate storytelling with lights out where political moments puncture like weather reports. Readers: performance artists Mi Park and Ricardo Guimarães

1.00pm Screening of part 1 of the Jarman Award Touring Programme 2017 (60min)

-Melanie Manchot, Out of Bounds (B), 2016, 12min
-Charlotte Prodger, BRIDGIT, 2016, 32min
-Adham Faramawy, Janus Collapse, 2016, 10min

2.00pm Introductions

2:15pm On Body, Performance and Moving Image
A special preview of Adham Faramawy’s latest work Body Firming Lotion (SuX 2B U), 2017, followed by an in-conversation with Isabella Maidment, Assistant Curator of Performance at Tate Modern

3:00pm On Filming Snow
A special preview of Melanie Manchot’s latest work Out of Bounds (C), 2017 – a high altitude choreography that speaks about the absurd rituals and complex issues at stake as we increasingly seek control over nature. Followed by a discussion on key themes in her recent practice with Charlie English, journalist and author of The Snow Tourist

4:00pm Break

4:30pm Notes on Queer Wilderness
Charlotte Prodger’s curated screening programme including a London Premiere of Charlotte’s latest work LHB, 2017, The Interior, 2016, by Jonathan Rattner and Hard as Opal, 2015, by Dani Leventhal and Jared Buckhieste (Total running time 74min)

Lawrence Abu Hamdan is an artist working across audio-visual installations, performances, graphic works, photography, Islamic sermons, cassette tape compositions, essays, and lectures. Abu Hamdan’s interest in sound and its intersection with politics originates from his background in DIY music. He has made audio analyses for legal investigations at the UK asylum Tribunal and advocacy for organisations such as Amnesty International and Defence for Children International.

Oreet Ashery is an interdisciplinary visual artist with an unorthodox, multi-layered and eclectic practice spanning photography, moving image, mass-produced and unique artefacts, text, music, workshops and performance. Ashery’s work confronts ideological, social and gender constructions within the fabric of personal and broader contemporary realities.

Adham Faramawy is a London-based artist working across moving image, sculptural installation and print. Faramawy often draws on the language of advertising, co-opting the special effects used to evoke desire for people, things and experiences. The artist combines these seductive devices of brilliance, slipperiness, morphing and repetition with his own interest in the transgressive aesthetics of ‘body horror’, found in manga and anime, as well as cult classics such as Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983).

Melanie Manchot is a London-based visual artist working across photography, moving image and installation. Her long-standing areas of enquiry range from portraiture to participation and performance, to questions of individual and collective identities, and to the exploration of the very particular socio-economic and ecological microclimate of a specific alpine mountain and its community. Situated at the threshold between the documentary and staged events, Manchot’s work frequently involves an engagement with strangers.

Charlotte Prodger is a Glasgow-based artist working with moving image across the ever-evolving formats that are inextricably bound to the autobiographical content of her work. Previous works combine video taken from YouTube with spoken text taken from internet forums and personal emails. The equipment used to play audio and video content is a vital part of Prodger’s work: Most recently, she has been making longer single screen works such as BRIDGIT, 2016, and Stoneymollan Trail, 2015.

Marianna Simnett is a London-based artist working with moving image, installation and performance. In her most recent work, she treats her own body as one might play with their online avatar, given the ephemerality and flexibility of its digital presentation. In The Needle and the Larynx, 2016, her voice is surgically lowered with Botox whilst she recites a grim parable about gender, nature and artifice.

Polly Staple has been Director of Chisenhale Gallery, London since 2008. She was formerly Director of Frieze Projects and Curator at Cubitt Gallery, London. Since 2000, Staple has commissioned solo projects and exhibitions by artists such as Pawel Althamer, Jeremy Deller, Hito Steyerl, Seth Price, Lynette Yiadom Boakye, Ed Atkins, Helen Marten, Camille Henrot, Jumana Manna, Park McArthur and Maria Eichhorn.

Lucia Pietroiusti studied trauma and mourning at Trinity College Dublin and Birkbeck, London. She is Curator of Public Programmes at the Serpentine Galleries. At Serpentine, she has worked with Marianna Simnett on a Park Nights performance in 2015 and the presentation of The Needle and the Larynx at the Miracle Marathon in 2016.

Declan Costello is a consultant ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgeon specialising in voice disorders at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. Before studying medicine, Declan undertook a music degree at St John’s College, Cambridge. During his time there, he was a choral scholar, and continues to sing professionally, both in the UK and abroad. He currently runs a busy clinical service treating a variety of voice problems, including vocal disorders in singers.

Mi Park is a performance artist drawing on her everyday encounters as subject matter for her work. The very current site-specificity of the artist herself, a female eastern Asian art student in London, is the underlying theme of her recent practice. Mi questions race, gender, class and social status through performances playing on stand-up comedy, wedding proposal and biker gang relationships.

Ricardo Guimarães is an artist working mostly with performance and video, whose practice revolves around ideas of memory and identity. Ricardo questions how memory, fiction and sentimentality operate within national identity constructs, questioning their reliability, relevance and emotional weight in a realisation of displacement.

Isabella Maidment is Assistant Curator of Performance at Tate Modern. She received a PhD in the History of Art from University College London (UCL) in 2016. While completing her PhD she worked at Tate Britain as Assistant Curator, Contemporary British Art, and contributed to acquisitions, exhibitions, Duveen Gallery commissions and displays of British art.

Charlie English is a journalist and author. He has held numerous positions at the Guardian, most recently as head of international news. His first book, The Snow Tourist, was widely praised for its insightful observations on our fascination with snow. His second book The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu was published to great acclaim earlier this year.