Palestinian-English artist Rosalind Nashashibi among nominees for prestigious Turner Prize 2017



At the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt, Palestinians are peering through a towering border gate. What they're looking at isn't initially clear in Rosalind Nashashibi's short film Electrical Gaza, but then, the 43-year-old British artist doesn't deal in grand, obvious statements.

Instead, she depicts everyday life, children playing in the street, horses swimming in the sea and even some animated scenes. It’s not quite the image of the Gaza Strip we see in newspapers - and yet the knowledge of underlying tragedy is always there. Directly after she filmed it in 2014, Israel began its military occupation.

“I think of the Gaza Strip as having been put under a kind of enchantment by the world powers,” Nashashibi said when her film was premiered in 2015. “I’m using terms from an archaic or childish language to allow the extraordinary conditions to show through with all the attendant fear, excitement, suffering and boredom of life under enchantment.”

And yesterday such enchantment finally filtered through to the mainstream when Nashashibi - who has a Palestinian father and Irish mother - was nominated for Tate Britain’s hugely prestigious Turner Prize, won in the past by Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and Anish Kapoor.

Electrical Gaza formed part of a solo exhibition in Irvine, California last year for which Nashibibi has been nominated (along with her contribution to the Documenta 14 exhibition in Athens).

Tate Britain said that “the jury was impressed by the depth and maturity of Nashashibi’s work, which often examines sites of human occupation and the coded relationships that occur within those spaces – whether a family home or garden, a ship or the Gaza Strip.

“Her films use the camera as an eye to observe moments and events, contrasting reality with moments of fantasy and myth. They show how the intimate and everyday collide with issues of surveillance and control.”

And though The Turner Prize is awarded to a British artist for an “outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work”, this year’s shortlist of four is the most multicultural and international in some time - perhaps ever.

62-year-old Lubaina Himid is enjoying most of the early headlines simply because of her age - this is the first year that artists over 50 years old have been able to compete for the £25,000 (Dh118,000) prize. But it’s the work from this Zanzibar-born painter which should really do the talking, nominated for two solo shows in Bristol and Oxford, the former is a huge, colourful installation of life-size figures representing 18th century African slaves at work in the English city.

“The point I am often exploring vis-à-vis the black experience is that of being so very visible and different in the White Western everyday, yet so invisible and disregarded in the cultural, historical, political or economic record or history,” she said.

The other painter on the shortlist is Hurvin Anderson, whose upbringing in Birmingham’s African-Caribbean community and regular visits to Trinidad is shot through his work.

His stand-out piece, from the Hurvin Anderson: Dub Versions exhibition at New Art Exchange, Nottingham, Is It Okay To Be Black?, features portraits of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King in a barber's shop. "An outstanding British painter whose art speaks to our current political moment with questions about identity and belonging," said the jury.

Rounding off the shortlist is a German-born artist whose broad portfolio includes woodcuts, printmaking, film and sculpture. Andrea Buttner’s two exhibitions in Switzerland and Los Angeles exploring religion, morality and ethics were both hugely well-received, making her one of the favourites to win the prize when it is announced in December. In the meantime works by the four artists will go on display at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull - current UK City of Culture - from September.

For details go to www.tate.org.uk/turner-prize

artslife@thenational.ae

The National's picks

4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young

Real estate tokenisation project

Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.

At a glance - Zayed Sustainability Prize 2020

Launched: 2008

Categories: Health, energy, water, food, global high schools

Prize: Dh2.2 million (Dh360,000 for global high schools category)

Winners’ announcement: Monday, January 13

 

Impact in numbers

335 million people positively impacted by projects

430,000 jobs created

10 million people given access to clean and affordable drinking water

50 million homes powered by renewable energy

6.5 billion litres of water saved

26 million school children given solar lighting

NYBL PROFILE

Company name: Nybl 

Date started: November 2018

Founder: Noor Alnahhas, Michael LeTan, Hafsa Yazdni, Sufyaan Abdul Haseeb, Waleed Rifaat, Mohammed Shono

Based: Dubai, UAE

Sector: Software Technology / Artificial Intelligence

Initial investment: $500,000

Funding round: Series B (raising $5m)

Partners/Incubators: Dubai Future Accelerators Cohort 4, Dubai Future Accelerators Cohort 6, AI Venture Labs Cohort 1, Microsoft Scale-up 

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
 
Started: 2021
 
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
 
Based: Tunisia 
 
Sector: Water technology 
 
Number of staff: 22 
 
Investment raised: $4 million