A wild ride! Jarman award nominees on tour – in pictures

Featuring night workers and news reports from another dimension, nominees for the prestigious prize are taking their diverse, boundary-pushing films on tour. We meet the artists up for the prize

Main image: Scraps of genius … The Drift by Maeve Brennan, 2017. Photograph: © Maeve Brennan

  • Dreaming the End by Sin Wai Kin, 2023

    Jarman award nominee Sin Wai Kin states: ‘I use speculative fiction and fantasy in order to try and reimagine our relationship with our bodies and our bodies’ relationships to the world and to each other. I try to offer up alternative ways of existing. I try to question binaries and categories.’ The film Dreaming the End does this by following two characters as they transform and travel through parallel universes and parallel selves. Work by the Jarman award nominees is on tour across the UK until 1 December 2024
    Dreaming the End by Sin Wai Kin, 2023Dreaming the End follows 2 characters as they transform and travel through parallel universes and parallel selves. It’s a film about how we become ourselves and how we define our relationships to each other and the world in pre-existing structures, systems, languages and categories. Sin Wai Kin states ‘I use speculative fiction and fantasy in order to try re-imagine our relationship with our bodies and our bodies relationships to the world and to each other. ‘I try to offer up alternative ways of existing. I try to question binaries and categories.’

  • The Breaking Story by Sin Wai Kin, 2022

    Sin Wai Kin: ‘The Breaking Story is a six-channel video installation which features news presenters that are broadcasting from alternate realities where different things are true. The work is focusing on the binaries of fantasy and reality and performance and authenticity. It’s about the construction of truth and who gets to define what’s real and what’s not and thinking about the role of news presenter as a contemporary storyteller’
    an alien looking newsreader from another dimension. The Breaking Story by Sin Wai Kin, 2022‘The Breaking Story is a 6 channel video installation which features news presenters that are broadcasting from alternate realities where different things are true - that work is focussing on the binaries of fantasy and reality and performance and authenticity. It’s about the construction of truth and who gets to define what’s real and what’s not and thinking about the role of news presenter as a contemporary story teller.’ …‘Reality is not some kind of objective layer that we are uncovering, reality is something that happens as we agree as to what it is – so the act of storytelling becomes incredibly important and incredibly powerful.’ Sin Wai Kin.

  • With Horses by Maeve Brennan, 2023

    With Horses by nominee Maeve Brennan is a rumination on life and death in a damaged world. The installation shows a dying horse and a newborn foal in the midst of a landscape of plastic waste, addressing the temporality of the industrial age. The use of fossil fuels for cheap synthetic plastics has produced a throwaway culture worldwide through economic globalisation. Its toxic residue is distributed throughout the planet and deposited in the Earth’s soil. In two long shots we see a newborn foal and his mother in the alluvial land of a dam in Burkina Faso
    Maeve Brennan, With Horses (2023) Commissioned by E-WERK FreiburgWith Horses (2023) is a rumination on living and dying in a damaged world. The installation shows a dying horse and a newborn foal in the midst of a landscape of plastic waste, addressing the temporality of the industrial age. The use of fossil fuels for cheap synthetic plastics has produced a throwaway culture worldwide through economic globalisation. Its toxic residue is distributed throughout the planet and deposited in the earth’s soil. In two long shots we see a newborn foal and his mother in the alluvial land of a dam in Burkina Faso. In the second video, a dying stallion is filmed respectfully in back view. In Burkina Faso, horses are considered sacred and are buried in the ground. For this purpose, ever thicker layers of plastic have to be dug through before reaching soil.

  • The Drift by Maeve Brennan, 2017

    ‘With regard to my process, people are at the centre of my work,’ says Brennan. ‘And throughout my process I’m trying to remain open to sort of chance encounters, allowing them to inform and shape the work’s direction. And so I think this is somehow an attempt to not pre-empt what the film will be, and in a sense be responsive to the world that I encounter there’
    A burnt out car on grass from The Drift by Maeve Brennan, 2017‘With regard to my process, people are at the centre of my work,’ says Brennan. ‘And throughout my process I’m trying to remain open to sort of chance encounters, allowing them to inform and shape the work’s direction. And so I think this is somehow an attempt to not pre-empt what the film will be, and in a sense be responsive to the world that I encounter there’

  • The Invisible Worm by Rosalind Nashashibi, 2024

    Nominee Rosalind Nashashibi’s work is brimming with the joy and physicality of her analogue film medium. The film, in three parts, is an exploration of non-linear time and corruption. It looks at the mythology of an artist, while also addressing corruption on the personal, corporate and governmental level
    The Invisible Worm by Rosalind Nashashibi, 2024An exploration of non-linear time and corruption, Nashashibi’s work is brimming with the joy and physicality of her analogue film medium. The film in 3 parts, looks at the mythology of an artist, it also speaks of corruption on the personal, corporate and governmental level.

  • Wayfinder by Larry Achiampong, 2022

    ‘I’m really interested in what identity means,’ says nominee Larry Achiampong. ‘Not simply in relation to history, but with regards to the digital age, this ability to create multiple versions or even facets of oneself. And with that in mind, I explore various aspects of popular culture, whether that be popular films, B-movie type stuff, histories of gaming or music’
    Wayfinder by Larry Achiampong, 2022‘I’m really interested in what identity means, not simply in relation to history, but especially with regards to the digital age, this ability to create multiple versions or even facets of oneself. And with that in mind, I explore various aspects of popular culture. So whether that be popular films, B-movie type stuff, histories of gaming, or music. ‘ ‘I’m interested in creating versions of myself or exploring multiple narratives.’

  • A Pledge by Larry Achiampong, 2024

    Achiampong continues: ‘In the case of the film A Pledge, I’m thinking about the relationship that I have with my son as he grows into a young adult. A deeper aspect of the film is a sequence in which myself and my son are sparring within a blackened infinity space. We’re engaging in a close-quarter combat style called Gōjū-ryū. And the philosophy of Gōjū-ryū, which translates to “hard, soft style”, has a great significance towards life and balance’
    A Pledge by Larry Achiampong, 2024Achiampong continues: ‘In the case of the film A Pledge, I’m thinking about the relationship that I have with my son as he grows into a young adult. A deeper aspect of the film is a sequence in which myself and my son are sparring within a blackened infinity space. We’re engaging in a close-quarter combat style called Gōjū-ryū. And the philosophy of Gōjū-ryū, which translates to “hard, soft style”, has a great significance towards life and balance’

  • Mast del by Maryam Tafakory, 2023

    Two women lie together in bed in nominee Maryam Tafakory’s film Mast-del. As the wind bashes against the window, one recalls a past date to the cinema. The narrated scene cannot be conveyed through images. Layers of found and original footage are superimposed to fill in some of the cracks. Mast-del is about forbidden bodies and desires inside and outside post-revolution Iranian cinema. This film guides us away from the codes of censorship towards the unseen, the neglected pleasures and the resistance of bodies erased within and beyond the silver screen
    Maryam Tafakory by Mast del, 2023Two women lie together in bed. As the wind bashes against the window, one recalls a past date to the cinema. The narrated scene cannot be conveyed through images. Layers of found and original footage are superimposed to fill in some of the cracks, the deletions, and the limits of representation. A love song that would never pass through the censors, Mast-del is about forbidden bodies and desires inside and outside post-revolution Iranian cinema.This film is an attempt to guide us away from the codes of censorship towards the unseen, the everyday, the neglected pleasures, and the resistance of bodies erased within and beyond the silver screen.

  • CodeNames-II by Maryam Tafakory, 2023–24

    Revisiting films made in Iran after 1979, CodeNames is an archival search for the unspoken – a search for forgotten names, for forbidden bodies, for women’s disappearances both on and off the screen
    CodeNames-II by Maryam Tafakory, 2023–24Revisiting films made in Iran after 1979, Code Names is an archival search for the unspoken that is speaking—a search for forgotten names, for forbidden bodies, for women’s disappearances both on and off the screen.

  • Golden Girls by Melanie Manchot and Andrew Schonfelder, 2023

    Fellow nominee Melanie Manchot’s work spans film, video, photography and sound, delving into the processes that contribute to our individual and collective identities. Her projects investigate and use actions of caring, resistance and communality to engage in discussions about social and political urgencies. Performance-to-camera, reconstruction and involvement, as well as location-based research, are all common approaches in her work
    Melanie Manchot & Andrew Schonfelder, Golden Girls (2023)Across film, video, photography and sound, Melanie Manchot‘s work pursues enquiries into the processes that lead towards our individual and collective identities. Her projects interrogate and employ acts of care, resistance and communality to engage in discourses on social and political urgencies. Performance-to-camera, reconstruction and participation as well as location-based research are recurring methodologies in her work.

  • Liquid Skin by Melanie Manchot and Andrew Schonfelder, 2023

    The film Liquid Skin focuses on nine women who work at night. They take us on a meandering trek through Germany’s post-industrial landscape. They work as bakers, nurses, wrestlers, construction workers and pole dancers. ‘The work is quite invested in a female perspective and in a female gaze,’ says Manchot. ‘And the gendered experience of the workplace and the gendered experience of night time is still very much different for men and for women. It’s about giving people agency.’ The Jarman award winner will be announced in late November
    Liquid Skin by Melanie Manchot & Andrew Schonfelder, 2023This work focusses on nine women who work at night. These nine women take us on a tour, a meandering trek through Germany’s post-industrial landscape and working conditions characterised by nighttime labour. They work a variety of vocations, including bakers, nurses, wrestlers, construction workers, and pole dancers. ‘The work is quite invested in a female perspective and in a female gaze. And the gendered experience of the workplace and the gendered experience of night time is still very much different for men and for women. So it’s about really giving people agency, and I think particularly when it comes to a gendered vision of working environments, that agency is really important.’
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