The Freelands Foundation has announced that Spike Island, Bristol, will receive the third edition of the annual £100,000 Freelands Award. The institution will work alongside the foundation to present a solo exhibition of new work by Veronica Ryan in Autumn 2020. Established in 2016, The Freelands Award provides financial support to a regional arts organisation in presenting ‘a large-scale exhibition, including a significant new work, by a mid-career female artist who may not have yet received the acclaim or public recognition that her work deserves’.
Veronica Ryan’s 2020 exhibition at Spike Island will include specially commissioned new works, which will be set in dialogue with re-made early works that were destroyed in the 2004 Momart warehouse fire in east London. During the exhibition, Spike Island will also host a three-month artist residency and a symposium that will encourage new audiences to engage with Ryan’s process through participation and discussion.
This year’s shortlist of arts organisations for the award were: Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead; Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Spike Island, Bristol; Metropolitan Arts Centre, Belfast; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield.
The jury for the 2018 award was as follows: Elisabeth Murdoch (Chair); Martin Clark, Director, Camden Arts Centre; Susan Hiller, Artist; Jenni Lomax, Curator and former Director of Camden Arts Centre; and Beatrix Ruf, Curator and former Director of Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
22 November 2018