Film London Jarman Award Weekend 2020

Michelle Williams Gamaker works with moving image, performance and installation. Her practice is often in dialogue with film history, particularly Hollywood and British studio films. By restaging scenes to reveal their politically problematic, imperialist roots; her work is a form of ‘fictional activism’ to recast characters originally played by white actors with people of colour. She combines scriptwriting, workshopping with actors, revisiting analogue VFX and producing props to create intricately staged films.

Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings are an artist duo working in film, drawing, installation and performance. Their work examines the behaviours, history, politics and artefacts of LQBTQ culture in the western context, exploring how this culture is reflective of broader societal structures. Their collaborative practice uses film as part documentary and research, and part cinematic experience with an expert use of sound, colour, and camerawork.

Project Art Works’ collaborations, projects, events and studio actions challenge societal definitions of care, creative intent, value, communication and identity. Their programmes evolve through studio practice and radiate out to the cultural and care sectors. Work is made visible through projects, collaborations, exhibitions, co-commissions, films, publications and digital platforms, increasing neurodiverse representation in programming, and deepening understanding and visibility.

Personalised and holistic studio environments are recreated wherever a project takes place. The studio is a place of level hierarchy where events and happenings unfold revealing the lived experience and qualities of all those involved. Artists and makers work together in purposeful collaboration using total communication that utilises gesture, sound, signing and empathy and as such is an expansive rather reductive form of connection.

Jenn Nkiru is an artist and filmmaker. Pushed through an Afro-surrealist lens, her practice is grounded in the history of Black music and the aesthetics of experimental film and international art cinema. Her work draws on the Black arts movement and the rich and variegated tradition of cinemas of the Black diaspora and their distinct experimentation with the politics of form. Her work blends elements of history, identity, politics, music, documentary and dance.

Larissa Sansour works mainly with film, and also produces installations, photos and sculptures. Central to her work is the dialectics between myth and historical narrative. Born in East Jerusalem, Palestine, her recent work use science fiction to address social and political issues.

Andrea Luka Zimmerman is an artist, filmmaker and cultural activist whose engaged practice focuses on marginalised individuals, communities and experience. It employs imaginative hybridity and narrative re-framing, alongside reverie and informed waywardness. Creative approaches include long-term observation, intervention, re-enactment and the use of found / archive materials, grounded in an honouring of lived realities. Alert to sources of radical hope, this work prioritises an enduring and equitable co-existence.

The Film London Jarman Award 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 and is presented in association with the Whitechapel Gallery, London.

Now in its thirteenth year, the Award has built an enviable reputation for spotting rising stars of the UK art world. Previously shortlisted artists include: Laure Prouvost, Elizabeth Price, Monster Chetwynd, Duncan Campbell, James Richards, Charlotte Prodger, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Luke Fowler and Oreet Ashery all of whom went on to be shortlisted for or to win the Turner Prize.

The Whitechapel Gallery is committed to making all of our events as accessible as possible for every audience member. Please contact publicprogrammes@whitechapelgallery.org if you would like to discuss a particular request and we will gladly discuss with you the best way to accommodate it.  Further information about access at the Gallery is available here.

About This Event 

• This event takes place online only.
• You can access this event for free through this web page and also on the Whitechapel Gallery’s YouTube Channel, here.
• Easy Read Guides are available for Saturday and Sunday (click links).
• This event is suitable for those over the age of 16.
• We are unable to provide British Sign Language interpretation for this event.
• The live content will be captioned, however this is provided by artificially intelligent software. As a result some of the captions may not be perfectly accurate. The captioning will be visible to all viewers during these parts.
• For pre-recorded content, transcripts will be posted for download from the live chat on the YouTube channel.
• However, most of the touring programme films do not have captions.
• As the event is more than one hour, we will take rest breaks between sections.
• As the event is being live streamed, you can access it from your home if you have access to an internet connection.
• Some but not all of the live recording will be available afterwards. This is decided at the artists discretion.

This information will be updated where required.