Jozs Bitelli, Appau Jnr Boakye- Yiadom, Luke Burton, Zachary Eastwood-Bloom, Mark Essen, Umama Hamido, Kate Mackeson & Fleur Melbourn, Lydia Ourahmane, Molly Palmer, Morgan Quaintance, Anna Raczynski, Raju Rage
Jerwood Charitable Foundation has awarded 12 artist bursaries of £1000 each, providing direct financial support for the selected artists to develop a specific piece of work, undertake research, provide studio time to focus on a particular project or develop technical aspects of their practice or working methods.
The objective of the bursaries is to encourage experimentation and crucially to provide an opportunity for artists to define and determine their own development needs. Each selected artist will receive mentoring from the Jerwood Visual Arts team and be part of a peer-network attending facilitated sessions as a group. Introduced to mark Jerwood Visual Arts’ 10th anniversary, the bursaries offer an opportunity for artists to apply for support outside of Jerwood Visual Art’s larger-scale awards and without the expectation of a product outcome or public engagement.
Overview of Projects
Jozs Bitelli works across film, performance and installation with recent projects addressing the creation of the medical subject within the clinical setting, looking at the body politic in relation to clinician training methods and healthcare legislation. He will be producing a musical publication for an ongoing series of choir-led performances.
Appau Jnr Boakye-Yiadom examines and re-appropriates collective moments and memories which have a cultural resonance. He intends to remix archive footage of Ghanaian, Asafo Flag Dancing, Capoeira Martial Arts, Nigerian Esan acrobatic dancing, tap dancing and jazz drumming, a process which will serve both as research and the foundations of new work.
Considering the symbiotic relationship that decoration has to contemporary art and society, Luke Burton will conduct a series of interviews with artists who, in their respective ways, explore the intersection between these disciplines. An online platform will be created to document this research.
Jerwood Makers Open alumni Zachary Eastwood-Bloom explores materials and making in the digital age. He will be producing a ceramic sculpture comprised of 45 deformations to be shown at the Biennale internationale de Céramique de Châteauroux.
Mark Essen has a broad and experimental approach to making; utilising clay, photography, plaster, video and bronze. He will develop his existing process by introducing 3D scanning and printing, working specifically with Central Scanning in the Midlands to enable the production of slipcast ceramic objects.
Through performance, film and theatre, Umama Hamido negotiates the human’s relation to traumatic spaces. She will be conducting research to develop the script of a visual essay On Akka’s Shore: schizophrenia and War of the Camps. The work will centre around J, a Palestinian refugee rapper and diagnosed schizophrenic who sought asylum in the UK in 2013. The artist will construct a dialogue which positions J’s experience in a social and historical context.
Kate Mackeson & Fleur Melbourn will be working on a collaborative project which focuses on the relationship between property, identity and authorship. They will be embarking on a research trip to villa E-1027, the house designed by Eileen Gray on the Côte d’Azur, a lost legend of 20th century modernist architecture. The visit will provide content and contextual references for a film script.
Primarily concerned with human injustice, Lydia Ourahmane’s practice spans new media, video, public interventions, lecture-performance, sculptures and found objects. Her work explores youth and transitional existences, surveillance and complex social and political structures. She will undergo an intensive research period which will culminate in new work to be exhibited at the 15th Istanbul Biennale.
Working within and between the media of music, installation, choreography and film-making, Molly Palmer will attend contemporary dance classes at Rambert and undergo mentoring to advance her choreography and performance skills for forthcoming projects.
Writer, musician, broadcaster and curator Morgan Quaintance will undertake short-courses and artist mentoring sessions to develop his technical and theoretical skills in moving image. This will facilitate the production of his first 16mm film due to launch in 2018.
Visual artist and filmmaker Anna Raczynski is interested in documentary and collaborative art practice. Having recently moved from Poland to the UK, she is looking to initiate a community engagement project with the residents of Colne, Lancashire along with a local filmmaking group to explore their ideas around ‘vanishing Britain’.
Raju Rage uses performance and sculpture to communicate narratives around gender, race and culture. In September 2017 Raju will travel to the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference to conduct interviews and research, reflecting on the emotional impact of hormone therapy.
The selection was made by: Sarah Williams, Head of Programme, Jerwood Visual Arts; Oliver Fuke, Gallery Manager, Jerwood Visual Arts; and Alice May Williams, artist and recipient of the Jerwood/FVU Awards 2016: ‘Borrowed Time’ and a Project Space commission in 2015.
The project originally set out to provide support for 10 early-career artists in the development of their practice. However, in light of the volume and quality of applications as well as the urgency of subject matter demonstrated in many of the proposals, Jerwood Charitable Foundation has awarded a further two £1000 bursaries. The 731 proposals submitted highlight a growing and significant need for artist development opportunities and serves as a call to arts organisations to respond to the myriad of challenges currently facing artists.
