Artists of Tomorrow Award 2020
Laureta Hajrullahu, Shkamb Jaka, Brilant Milazimi.
Curated by Vala Osmani and Albert Heta
09/11/2020 - 13/02/2021
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 2020.
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 2020, comprised of Anne Barlow, the director of the TATE St Ives, England, Qëndresë Deda, artist, winner of Artists of Tomorrow Award 2018, Flaka Haliti, artist, Adam Kleinman, an independent curator and writer as well as the Regional Curator for North America at the Kadist Art Foundation and Nebojša Milikić, cultural worker and manager, researcher and activist based in Belgrade, have selected three finalists for the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2020 based on their promising proposals and existing works.
Laureta Hajrullahu was shortlisted for her poetic approach to critical issues of our time - such as the relationship between synthetic and organic life, nature and civilization, and human beings and technology – and her consideration of what societal challenges or new realities those bring. In her work, Hajrullahu sees digital media as both a defining feature of contemporary life and a means by which to deconstruct the boundaries between the physical and virtual world.
Laureta Hajrullahu (1997) was born in Presheve (Presevo). She is a young visual artist at the beginning of her career. She finished her middle and high school in the same city. After that, she continued her Art Studies in the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Prishtina.
Laureta’s artistic interests lie in the topics of privacy, gender, intimacy, digital ecosystems, time-travelling, artificial light and impossible futures... That being said she presents a diversity of critical views on reality by constantly deconstructing and re-combing the boundaries between the virtual and physical world, using digital media.
The second finalist is Shkamb Jaka, whose paintings of abstract and figurative forms contain coded images that relate to real or imagined experiences, or those that he considers as ‘in-between’. The jury was interested in Jaka’s artistic process that involves deconstructing human behaviors and ways of thinking and then ‘re-materializing’ them, primarily through the medium of painting and most recently, with a touch of humor, in film.
Shkamb Jaka was born in 1997 in Gjakovë. In 2017 he moved to Prishtina in order to study painting in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Prishtina, where he graduated in 2020. During his studies, Jaka was part of few group exhibitions and the solo exhibition ‘DisDeKodim’ organized at ‘Menza Ramiz Sadiku’ in 2020. His main focus is in painting but he also experiments with other media.
The third finalist is Brilant Milazimi whose figurative paintings seem both familiar and eerie in their depiction of elongated human forms within an undefined or somewhat ambiguous space. Drawing on personal and collective narratives, Milazimi’s work reflects an ongoing exploration of the social and political development of civic society in Kosovo, and what he sees as a larger ‘social psychology’ shaped by challenges around the freedom of expression and mobility.
Brilant Milazimi was born in 1994, in Gjilan, where he finished his high school at "Adem Kastrati", professional school of art, in the field of painting. He graduated in the Faculty of Arts, in the University of Prishtina.
Milazimi is one of the founders of "Hap" - a community for contemporary art, consisting and established by 4 artists, who continue to contribute towards contemporary art since 2017. Brilant Milazim's first solo exhibition was "Woke" (2019) held in "LambdaLambdaLambda", Prishtina, Kosovo. He was also part of group exhibitions; in 2020 with the exhibition "Keeping the Balance" at the Ludwig Museum, a temporary exhibition that presented about sixty works from Art Collection Telekom and the virtual exhibition "Artists in quarantine" organized by the European House in Pristina, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Kosovo.
In 2019 he participated in "A Pristine Blind Date", an exhibition organized as part of a workshop held by Petrit Halilaj and Elise Lamme; "Young Artists" exhibition, at the National Gallery of Kosovo; Gursel Sylejmani Award, Art Gallery, Ferizaj; “External”, public intervention, installation within "Hap", in front of the National Gallery of Kosovo. In the framework of "Hap", in 2018 he was part of the intervention in public space, installation/performance, "You need, we need!" in the court yard of the Faculty of Arts, Prishtina and in 2017, he was part of the exhibition "Emerge", in the premises of the Faculty of Arts, Prishtina.
The winner of Artists of Tomorrow Award 2020 will be announced on December 11th 2020, at the Boxing Club in Prishtina, in the closing of the exhibition of Artists of Tomorrow Award 2020.
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.
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.
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.
The Artists of Tomorrow Award 2020 is organized by Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina and is supported by Trust for Mutual Understanding (TMU), Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of the Republic of Kosovo, Municipality of Prishtina. Complete list of donors and cooperation partners for "The Artists of Tomorrow Award" 2020 will be announced in due time.