VIDEONALE AWARD BY FLUENTUM
We are glad to have a long-term partner in Fluentum from Berlin who, like us, is committed to contemporary art in the field Video and film inspires and artists are supported through exhibitions, co-productions and acquisitions for their own collection. At the opening of VIDEONALE.19, the Fluentum** Videonale Prize, which is endowed with 5,000 euros, will be awarded for the fourth time by an independent jury among all selected works.F
This year's winner of the Videonale Award by Fluentum goes to Esther Eliane Bots for her work "In Flow of Words"
→ Find out more about "In Flow of Words" here
Jurystatement
`In this deeply touching film, we are witness to the experiences of three interpreters, who worked for the International Criminal Tribunal of former Yugoslavia in The Hague. In their recollections of the aftermath of the war and the crimes committed, they reflect on their position as supposedly objective and passive interpreters and the moment when this position becomes an impossibility.
Eliane Esther Bots makes a very convincing aesthetic choice to not visualize the suffering and cruelty of the war that is talked about explicitly in the film. It rather amplifies the often invisible agents of translation. Bots also employs various mediation techniques like mirrors and other reflective surfaces to shed light on larger historiographic processes.
Alongside the protagonists, we as viewers can ask ourselves: What does it mean to bear witness to and narrate such atrocities? How do we empathize, listen to, and take responsibility for the survivors and the dead? And in these moments, where does our agency lie?`
Earlier Award Winners
V1: Jean-Francois Guiton, Volker Anding, Herbert Wentscher
V2: John Adams, Dara Birnbaum, Llurex
V3: Woody Vasulka, Paul Garrin, Cecelia Condit
V4: David Larcher, Norbert Meissner
V5: Marina Gržinić & Aina Šmid, Ken Feingold
V6: Sadie Benning, Peter Callas
V7: David Larcher, Bill Seaman, Paul Bush, Jem Cohen
V8: Denis Beaubois
V9: Călin Dan
V10: Roland Schappert & Michael Ebmeyer
V11: Beate Geissler & Oliver Sann
V12: Manon De Boer
V13: Nate Harrison
V14: Christian Jankowski
V15: Shelly Nadashi
V16: Randa Maroufi
V17: Sohrab Hura
V18: Che-Yu Hsu
V19: Eliane Esther Bots
Find the works of former winners in Videonale's Online Video Archive as well as on each individual Festival Website.
Award Jury of VIDEONALE.19
Prof. Dr. Stephan Berg is Intentant of the Kunstmuseum Bonn. He was director of the Kunstverein Freiburg and the Kunstverein Hannover and held lectureships in art theory and art history at the universities of Freiburg and Hannover, the Staatliche Kunstakademie Stuttgart and the Freie Kunsthochschule Basel. Since 2004 he has been an honorary professor at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig. He has realized numerous exhibition projects, most recently a solo exhibition with works by Walter Swennen (2021) and the exhibition "Jetzt! Young Painting in Germany".
Julia Höner studied Cultural Studies at the University of Hildesheim and Creative Curating at Goldsmiths College, University of London. After holding positions at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich and the European Kunsthalle in Cologne, she worked in Düsseldorf for KAI 10 | ARTHENA FOUNDATION as artistic director. Julia Höner has been director of the Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen since 2022. Her exhibition, teaching, and publication activities focus on contemporary art and its interfaces with design, architecture, and everyday culture, as well as related visual discourses and sociopolitical debates.
Anna Lena Seiser is managing director of the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) and head of the n.b.k. Video Forum, the oldest and one of the largest public video art collections in Germany. Seiser was a curator at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and worked for the artist support of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes as well as the postgraduate Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Fellowship Program. In 2009/2010 she was part of the program team of transmediale - Festival for Art and Digital Culture. Among other things, Seiser has researched and published on the media history of the living image at the intersections of art and science.
Niels Van Tomme is director at ⓐⓡⓖⓞⓢ centre for audiovisual arts in Brussels. As a curator, lecturer, and critic, he works on the intersections of contemporary culture and critical social awareness. His exhibitions and programmes have been presented among others at Akademie der Künste (Berlin), The Kitchen (New York) and Tallinn Art Hall (Tallinn). Previously, he was director and chief curator at De Appel in Amsterdam (2016-18), curator at the Bucharest Biennale 7 and director of arts and media at Provisions Learning Project in Washington, DC (2008-11).
Lisa Long is a curator specializing in time-based art who has directed the Julia Stoschek Foundation artistic program since 2018. Long is co-founder and board member of the feminist initiative And She Was Like:BÄM! and editor of the collaborative project Companion Studies. She has taught Curatorial Studies at Folkwang University in Essen, Germany, and worked with MFA students at Bard College and Rutgers University. Her recent projects include exhibitions such as "Piña, Why is the Sky Blue?" by Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser, and the group exhibitions "at dawn" and "A Fire in My Belly."