The Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art has awarded three six-months work grants for 2018. The grants of 10.000 Euro are sponsored by Stiftung Niedersachsen.  436 artists from all over the world have applied for the grants.

We are pleased to announce that the three award winners are Viktor Brim, Mario Pfeifer und Kim Schoen.

Jury members:

• Nav Haq, Senior Curator M HKA, Antwerp
• Edit Molnár, Director Edith-Russ-Haus, Oldenburg
• Marcel Schwierin, Director Edith-Russ-Haus, Oldenburg
• Monika Szewczyk, Director De Appel, Amsterdam

The Jury statement:

Amid the highest number of submissions received in the history of the grant, the jury was struck by the high quality of all the proposals. While certain common threads and tendencies emerged, the final selection was made based on the depth of individual research, aesthetic distinction, and clarity of vision for each artist. The awarding of these grants will enable the production of one significant new work in the oeuvre of each of the three artists, who explore subject matter deeply relevant in the present moment

Viktor Brim

Dark Matter - Filmstill © Viktor Brim 2019

In Brim’s proposal for Practical Fiction, a continuum is drawn between the resource policies of Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union and Vladimir Putin’s Russian Federation, particularly through the Mir diamond mine in Yakutia, Siberia. The artist will combine a film shot at this location and a new publication compiling his archival research on Soviet and Russian rhetoric with a selection of materials for display.
While Brim’s remarkable filmmaking offers a complex consideration of the impact of successive regimes on a particular landscape, his focus on Siberia also invites a broader reflection on resource extraction globally.

Mario Pfeifer

Zelle 5 – Renderings/Production Stills © Mario Pfeifer Studio

Following on from his video installation Again / Noch einmal (2018), Pfeifer’s new installation Zelle 5 – 800° Celsius continues to investigate unresolved incidents involving the violent death of people seeking refuge in Germany. Whilst Again enacts a tribunal in lieu of a trial that never took place – in this case, of Schabas Saleh Al-Aziz, an Iraqi man who died of exposure one week before the final hearing of the four men who apprehended him in a supermarket and tied him to a tree alleging violent behaviour, in Zelle 5 the death by fire of Sierra Leonean refugee Oury Jalloh presents new challenges due to the destruction of evidence. Pfeifer activates his audience as a jury while also emphasising the decisive role of media and mediation in shaping societal opinion.

Kim Schoen

Kim Schoen, Video still from Baragouin, work-in-progress, 2019

Having explored the topics of nonsense and repetition over the last ten years, Schoen will mark a turning point in her practice with the experimental installation Baragouin (named after a French term for unintelligible jargon). With this work, the artist gives voice to objects, specifically copies of sculptures ranging in origin from Buddhist through rococo and neoclassical to modernist, that she found in a (now closed) commercial showroom in Los Angeles. Working with the assumption that commerce creates a lingua franca, her proposal is to mount a ’nonsense opera’ with this cast of sculptures.
Made in collaboration with an art historian and a voice talent who can imitate the sounds of languages from around the world, Baragouin will present the sculptures all appearing to “speak” in voices relating to their originals’ provenance. These commercial replicas together with the echoes of languages hold up a grotesque mirror to museology.

The Foundation of Lower Saxony grant at the Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art supports a wide spectrum of media art, from video art and net-based projects to audio works and audio-visual installations.
Each of the three grants will be awarded for the production of a new project in the area of media art.  

An international jury will convene to select the recipients of the grants.

 
For further information, please contact:
info(at)edith-russ-haus.de; Tel.: 0441 235-3208