The Han Nefkens Foundation—Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Grant 2022 has been awarded to Noor Abed (b. 1988, Palestine), in association with the Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) in Manila, the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, and WIELS in Brussels.
Han Nefkens, the founder of the Han Nefkens Foundation, served as the meeting’s moderator while the directors and curators of each partner institution voted for Noor Abed.
The Selection Committee stated: “Noor Abed’s proposal mobilises mythologies and folklore to reclaim past and present realities of communal existence against hegemonic strategies of social and cultural fragmentation. Through a poetic choreography of bodies, sites, narratives, and temporalities, her work encourages reflection on the manifestations of social action and resistance in the everyday life.”
“I’m particularly happy that we will be collaborating with Noor Abed. Her work offers a poetic and multi-layered exploration of both personal and communal emotions around loss. Abed emphasises the importance of shared experiences thereby allowing viewers to access her reality while at the same time reflect on their own.” —Han Nefkens
“In my work, I search for stories and narrations that are on the margins, trying to find clues to create alternative discourses. The work usually reflects the past—in its form or content—and yet it suggests a decisive connection to the future—as if it is a remembrance of things to come. Thinking of the reality we currently live in as haunted; I try to invite a shift in our memory. My work questions collective social identities through means of constructing mythologies and working around a critical stance of ‘folklore’ as a source of knowledge. I am to create situations for alternative social and representational models in Palestine.” —Noor Abed
The Han Nefkens Foundation will provide Noor Abed $15,000 to help with the cost of making a new, limited-edition video. The finished video will be finished by the end of September 2023, and the five participating institutions—the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona, the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art in Singapore, WIELS in Brussels, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) in Manila, and Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai—will begin exhibiting it internationally beginning in 2024.
The Han Nefkens Foundation—Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Grant evaluates up-and-coming artists who are under 40 and reside in West and Central Asia in order to advance the candidates’ careers. They are artists that have built a strong career path, but they haven’t had the chance to participate in many exhibitions. The production grant should be a crucial source of assistance and a career boost for the artist.
Noor Abed was selected by a judging panel chaired by Han Nefkens and composed of Joselina Cruz, Director/Curator at Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila; Nuria Homs, Curator at Fundació Antoni Tàpies; Helena Kritis, Curator of WIELS, Brussels; Anna Lovecchio, Assistant Director, Programmes at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore; Nora Razian, Head of Exhibitions at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai; Dirk Snauwaert, Director of WIELS, Brussels; Linda Valdez, Exhibitions Manager at Fundació Antoni Tàpies; in the presence of Hilde Teerlinck, Director of the Han Nefkens Foundation and Alessandra Biscaro, Coordinator of the Han Nefkens Foundation.
The initial candidates for the Han Nefkens Foundation—Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Award 2022 were selected by internationally recognized art critics and curators (nominated by each participant institution). The experts were Lara Acuin, Karina El Helou, Yasmine Helou, Ryan Inouye, Moad Musbani, Alya Sebti, James Tana and Salma Tuqan.