Artist and filmmaker Hikaru Fujii has been announced the winner of the Nissan Art Award 2017 Grand Prix prize for his videowork Playing Japanese (2017). Developed from material gathered at a workshop during which he invited members of the public to ‘perform’ what it is to be Japanese, the work explores the extant political and social problems in Japanese culture that is deeply rooted in a ‘period of Japanese history…when the nation started to interact with other cultures’, whilst also addressing the ‘impact of disasters on communities, depopulation, immigration, and discrimination’.
Along with receiving ¥5 million (£33,790) in prize money and a trophy, Fujii will be given the opportunity to participate in a three-month residency at the International Studio & Curatorial Program, a leading global art institution in New York. The other four finalists received ¥1 million (approximately £6,760) in prize money.
Fujii was chosen from a shortlist of five artists by an international jury which included the Fumio Nanjo (director, Mori Art Museum), Jean de Loisy (director, Palais de Tokyo), Sunjung Kim (director, Art Sonje Center), Jessica Morgan (director, DIA Art Foundation) and Lawrence Rinder (director and chief curator, Berkeley Museum and Pacific Film Archive). The Nissan Art Award was established in 2013 to help provide promising artists with the opportunity to reach new audiences and ‘obtain the resources to grow their talents’.
9 October 2017
