Maeve Brennan and Imran Perretta have been announced as the winners of the fifth edition of the Jerwood/FVU Awards, titled Unintended Consequences. The artists, who are both within the first five years of their practice, will each receive £20,000 towards developing new moving-image works. The theme of this year’s award ‘addresses how the best-laid plans can unravel and well-intentioned actions can provoke unexpected side-effects’. The two artists were chosen for the award because their proposals ‘reflect the complex, entangled nature of contemporary experience’. Brennan’s proposal considers the presence of wind turbines in landscapes and their effect on the wider ecosystem of such sites, while Imran Perretta will focus on displacement and mass migration by examining how the face of the refugee has been dehumanised and anonymised by contrasting the testimonies of asylum seekers with public perception and popular iconography.
The artists were selected by a jury including Noor Afshan Mirza, artist and cofounder of no.w.here; George Vasey, currently working as a curator on the Turner Prize 2017 and curatorial fellow at Newcastle University; Steven Bode, director, FVU; and Sarah Williams, head of programme, Jerwood Visual Arts.
The two new commissions will be shown at Jerwood Space 6 April – 3 June 2018, and will then tour across the UK.
Read our review of Maeve Brennan’s most recent film The Drift (2017).
8 June 2017