The New York-based Moroccan artist Meriem Bennani has been announced as the recipient of the fifth edition of the annual EYE Art & Film Prize. The prize, a collaboration between the Dutch film museum and the Paddy and Joan Leigh Fermor Arts Fund since 2015, awards £25,000 to fund the making of new work. The aim of the prize is ‘to support and promote the artist or filmmaker whose work unites art and film, and demonstrates quality of thought, imagination and artistic excellence’.
The jury, chaired by director of the EYE Filmmuseum Sandra den Hamer, also included the fashion designer Agnès B., curators Solange Farkas and Andrea Lissoni, artists Aernout Mik and Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Oliver Stewart, a trustee at the PJLF Arts Fund and the director of BellRock Script. Describing Bennani as an ‘important voice of her generation’, the jury praised the artist for a ‘playful style’ that challenges the traditional documentary form but often approaches sensitive subjects with unexpected humour and freshness.’ The previous winners are Francis Alÿs, Ben Rivers, Hito Steyerl and Wang Bing.
5 April 2019
