The Film London Jarman Award 2024 has been given to Maryam Tafaktory, who will receive £10,000.
Larry Achiampong, Maeve Brennan, Melanie Manchot, Rosalind Nashashibi and Sin Wai Kin were also nominated for the 17th edition of the Award.
‘Maryam Tafakory is part of a new generation of Iranian filmmakers who engage the politics of memory through essay-films and experimental cinema,’ Gelare Khoshgozaran wrote in a feature on Tafaktory for ArtReview October 2024.
‘The London-based Iranian artist’s work consists, almost entirely, of archival footage and the meticulous rearrangement of cinematic fragments selected from hundreds of Iranian films made after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Sourced primarily from her personal archive and YouTube, the dissected and reassembled scenes from the movies are later overlaid with anachronistic sounds from the original audio, or deftly scored by contemporary composers.’
Established in 2008, the Jarman is awarded to contemporary artists working in film – run in partnership with the Whitechapel Gallery and Barbican. Previous winners of the award include Rehana Zaman (2023), Grace Ndiritu (2022), Jasmina Cibic (2021), Hetain Patel (2019) and Daria Martin (2018). In 2020, the entire shortlist – Michelle Williams Gamaker, Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings, Jenn Nkiru, Project Art Works, Larissa Sansour and Andrea Luka Zimmerman – was jointly awarded, with the prize equally divided in ‘solidarity [with] the artistic and creative community in the face of challenging economic conditions resulting from the global COVID-19 pandemic’.
Tafakory has shown work at MoMA, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Filmoteca de Catalunya, Barcelona and LUX London. She was awarded the Gold Hugo at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival; the Tiger Short Award at the 51st Rotterdam IFF; the Barbara Hammer Feminist Film Award at the 60th Ann Arbor Film Festival; and the Best Experimental Film Award at the 70th and 71st Melbourne International Film Festival.
‘Tafakory’s practice is a compelling exploration of displacement, memory and resistance, interweaving archival fragments, poetry and personal narratives to craft deeply evocative works. Her films navigate historical and personal traumas with remarkable sensitivity, reflecting on the intersections of Iranian cultural identity and individual struggles. Tafakory’s innovative blend of reality and fiction through visual poetry, symbolism and archival compilation firmly establishes her as a worthy winner of the Jarman Award, showcasing an artistic voice that is both profound and essential,’ the Barbican’s Cinema Curator and Jury member Matthew Barrington said in a statement.
Films by the six artists will screen at London’s Whitechapel Gallery across Saturday 30 November and Sunday 1 December.
