Inaugural Jerwood Moving Image Awards Prize Winners Announced
The Jerwood Charitable Foundation has announced the three winners of the inaugural Jerwood Moving Image Awards. Sophie Clements, Johnny Kelly and the creative partnership of Rosie Pedlow and Joe King each received £10,000 in the first ever major award in the UK for artists working in digital moving image.
The three winning films reflect the astonishing range and outstanding quality of the work currently being produced in this discipline.
- Sophie Clements' Evensong was conceived as a piece of visual music, and in its delicate and sublime layering of sound and colour manages to fuse sensory experiences, and demonstrates the technical mastery of its maker.
- Procrastination by Johnny Kelly is a vivid and funny account of putting things off, a human experience that anyone can relate to, and whose humour is derived from the sparkling interplay between the droll script and the dazzling visuals.
- Rosie Pedlow and Joe King's work Sea Change comes from a very different filmmaking tradition, and is a beautiful portrait of a coastal community in a time of change.
Taken together, the films present a snapshot of the cutting edge of contemporary practice in this emerging artform, and will establish their creators as leaders in their field.
The Jerwood Moving Image Awards were established this year to support and promote the myriad disciplines that fall under the umbrella term ‘digital moving image', and to provide a platform for debating the present state and future prospects of the artform.
Roanne Dods, Director of the Jerwood Charitable Foundation comments, "The Jerwood Moving Image Awards mark the coming of age of a uniquely exciting creative discipline of almost limitless possibility. The three winning films wonderfully fulfil the potential of putting digital technology in the hands of artists, and will hopefully encourage audiences, artists and critics alike to engage more closely with this artform."
The panel of judges was led by Wayne McGregor of the Royal Ballet, who comments, "The judges have been overwhelmed at every stage of this competition by the energy and imagination invested in each entry. The staggering diversity of practices that we've seen, from dance film and documentary to animation and video art, reveals a discipline that is vigorously creative and consistently challenging its own boundaries. Ultimately, however, artistic excellence was the only criteria that guided us, and the three winners admirably fulfil this requirement."
Along with the five other finalists, the three winners can be seen in the finalists' exhibition at the Jerwood Space until 20th March 2008. They are also available to view online at www.jerwoodmovingimage.org.uk, where they can also be downloaded. Twenty-two other shortlisted films can also be streamed online at the Jerwood Moving Image Awards website.
The Jerwood Moving Image Awards received more than 350 entries this year, and demonstrate the Jerwood Charitable Foundation's commitment to endorsing new practices in contemporary art, offering funding and support for emerging artists working with new technologies.
Full article in PDF format05/03/2008
