Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019
Somer Şpat, Edona Kryeziu, Dion Zeqiri.

Curated by Vala Osmani and Albert Heta

06/11/2019 - 06/12/2019

Opening: 06/11/2019, 20:00
Announcement of the winner: 06/12/2019, 20:00

Venue: Boxing Club, Mark Isaku 8,10000 Prishtina, Republic of Kosovo

Stacion - Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina is pleased to announce the exhibition of the finalists of the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019.

The Artists of Tomorrow Award is part of the Young Visual Artists Awards program - a network of ten similar awards organized throughout Central and Eastern Europe with the intention of supporting the emergence and development of contemporary art and civil society.

The Jury of the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019, comprised of Charles Esche, the director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Qëndresë Deda, artist, winner of Artists of Tomorrow Award 2018, Adam Kleinman, an independent curator and writer as well as the Regional Curator for North America at the Kadist Art Foundation, Sezgin Boynik, theoretician and editor based in Helsinki, Jelena Vesić curator, writer, editor and independent lecturer based in Belgrade, have selected three finalists to the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019 based on the criteria of innovative, strong and also interdisciplinary practices, the merit of their artistic portfolio, prior accomplishments and exhibitions, and demonstrated potential.

The jury was delighted by the interest shown in the prize and the variety of artistic approaches amongst the applications this year. Members of the Jury who were part of the Jury in 2018 thought that there was an improvement in the overall quality of the artistic work and the proposals.

Somer Şpat has been shortlisted for his remarkable project relating to the rise and fall of the railway industry in Kosovo. His work showing the collective efforts of modernization of Kosovo in the Yugoslavian period is contrasted with the social transition and leftovers of industrial progress and how their remains are incorporated into everyday Kosovar life in remarkable ways.

Somer Şpat (1996, Prizren) has completed his bachelor degree in Photography at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. His interest in art started from a passion towards cinema which led him to study Photography. Through studying photography he developed interest to contemporary art and found more experimental ways of thinking and discussing it.

Somer doesn’t consider himself as dependent to a specific medium. The medium comes through the process of his artistic research. In other words, through the process, the medium emerges and imposes itself to him. Perceiving himself as a producer rather than a creator he so tries to further complicate the authorship issues in his works.

His works focus on political issues, both in local and in international context. Retroactively, his artworks try to deal with the various forms and representations of state violence. This violence can be the imposition of images by state; or the destruction of public infrastructure by private property.
He considers archival research as a very important part of his production. After spending time in archives to find materials for his ongoing “railway” project, Somer discovered the portraits of the voluntary workers who built the railway lines, and this discovery changed the direction of his work and gave it a different rhythm.

Edona Kryeziu (1994) was born in a small German town close to the French border. She spent most of her childhood and adolescence in Cologne, Germany. There, she was raised among other people whose parents were not from Germany.

Visiting a high-school which was predominantly German and Christian, made her think about the migrant condition, the famous 'culture clash' narrative, urban segregation, privilege and inequality. At the age of 18, she spent a year in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she worked with local community centres to support the marginalised. It was there where she learned to question the status quo, which made her study first Social Science in Maastricht and Istanbul University, then Anthropology of Migration and Diaspora at SOAS University of London.

Besides academia, Edona has a theatre background, in acting and screenplay writing, and likes to experiment with different mediums such as film montage, photography, installations to question normalcy.

The purpose of her work is to expose feelings of displacement, inner ambivalence, self-denial and strategies of survival that come along when being a diasporic subject. Therefore, she uses her feelings and personal background as a resource to illuminate on the nature of a fragmented identity. Each piece of art contributes to creating a third space as a point of enunciation for her, minorities in Germany, and all diasporas to which her work may speak to. This is an intervention and creation of something new, rooted in grief, confusion, anger and – hope. The very process of making art for her is the journey towards dissolving the ‘Otherness’ in her ‘Self’.

Dion Zeqiri (1996) completed his bachelor studies in interior design at the University of Prishtina (2018). He has been working in a design company as a compiler of creative projects. Through various styles, he began to practice painting since primary school.

Zeqiri works with various mediums such as: installations, sculptures, video and readymade objects continuously requiring to question those found objects for translating them in a communication, that puts his language in the social scale.Dion Zeqiri’s first show was “Rumination” (2018), “Hapësira Motrat”, Prishtina, Kosovo.

Dion Zeqiri’s art practice lies as a departing point of his personal experience. He worked on empowering subjects that include actual emotional or physical conditions, by opening new interpretations around occurrence’s and circumstances.

The winner of Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019 will be announced on December 6th 2019, at the Boxing Club in Prishtina, in the closing of the exhibition of Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019.

The Artists of Tomorrow Award is a pivotal independent award, organized in cooperation with Residency Unlimited in New York, supported by The Trust for Mutual Understanding in New York and main sponsors of the Artists of Tomorrow Award in Kosovo Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport of the Republic of Kosovo and U.S. Embassy in Kosovo.

The Artists of Tomorrow Award is a unique project which provides young visual artists under the age of 35 the opportunity to produce new art work, be part of a tailored education process, have meetings and presentations for an international jury of highly acclaimed professionals, have a joint exhibition with the finalists, curated by the curatorial team of Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina, and become part of an artist in residency program in United States to experience New York’s dynamic art scene for a two month residency at Residency Unlimited.

The winner of the Artists of Tomorrow Award, upon their return form US, will have a solo exhibition at Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina, as part of the exhibitions program of the institution and the Artists of Tomorrow Award program.

The Artists of Tomorrow Award is part of the Young Visual Artists Awards program - a network of ten similar awards organized throughout Central and Eastern Europe founded in 1989 in Czechoslovakia by President Vaclav Havel and dissident artists with the intention of supporting the emergence and development of contemporary art and civil society.

The intention of President Havel, Wendy W. Luers, the US organizers and founders was to award young artists with a US residency - that is to expose them to the outside world - and to underscore the role of culture in democratization and civil society. They established an open and transparent annual competition judged by an independent and changing jury without the nepotism and favoritism. This founding mission and programmatic framework - to promote contemporary art, recognize and award artistic excellence, foster cultural exchange, and build capacity of local art NGO’s and civil society – is also a guide for Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina to implement The Artists of Tomorrow Award in Kosovo.

In 2015 Residency Unlimited (RU) became the new host of the Young Visual Artists Awards (YVAA) program in US. In September 2015, Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina has been tasked to assume leadership of the Artist of Tomorrow Award (AOT) in Kosovo starting with the first cycle in 2016 and with building upon and carrying forward the legacy of the Award.

In 2017 the Board of the Trust for Mutual Understanding approved the request of Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina to organize the Artists of Tomorrow Award in Kosovo in annual basis. In 2014, the organizers of YVAA had decided to turn the Artists of Tomorrow Award in a biannual program.

Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina aims to enhance the potential and influence of The Artists of Tomorrow Award in the general developments in contemporary art in the whole territory of Kosovo.

Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina thanks all Kosovo artists who applied for the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019 for their continuous work and collaboration.

Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina thanks jury for their work and collaboration.

Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina thanks sponsors and supporters of the Artists of Tomorrow Award.

The Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019 organized by Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina is supported by the U.S. Embassy in Kosovo, Trust for Mutual Understanding (TMU), Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of the Republic of Kosovo, Municipality of Prishtina, x-print and DZG.