31 Oct Ashfika Rahman Wins Future Generation Art Prize 2024
Source Credit: Content and images from Ocula Magazine. Read the original article - https://ocula.com/magazine/art-news/ashfika-rahman-wins-future-generation-art-prize/
The U.S. $100,000 prize is awarded to an artist under 35 years old by Ukraine’s PinChukArtCentre.
Ashfika Rahman, Behula and a Thousand Tales (2024). Green cotton fabric, gold silk thread with metal frame. Courtesy of the Artist. Image courtesy PinchukArtCentre © 2024. Photo: Oleksandr Piliugin.
PinchukArtCentre announced Bangladeshi artist Ashfika Rahman the winner of the seventh Future Generation Art Prize at a ceremony in Kyiv on 29 October.
Ashfika Rahman’s winning work, Behula and a Thousand Tales (2024) uses photography, prints, text, and sculpture to examine the role of women in society.
The work is an evolution of বেহুলা আজকাল (Behula These Days) (2022–2023), which includes testimonies of violence against women living by the riverbank, which showed at the Dhaka Art Summit in 2023.
Covering the Summit for Ocula, Stephanie Bailey wrote, ‘Rahman recorded these testimonies along the river line associated with the myth of Behula, who followed the corpse of her husband—killed by Hindu snake goddess Manasa—on a raft that floated to heaven, where she sang so beautifully that he was restored to earth. Rahman critiques the myth’s underlying message that women should sacrifice themselves for men; a fact that becomes transposed to the riverbank, where gendered domesticity has left women particularly vulnerable to climate change.’
Rahman celebrated the Future Generation Art Prize as ‘a space where people from all over the world can speak freely.’
‘I commend the courage of the organisers, who, despite numerous challenges, successfully created an open platform for expression,’ she said.
Rahman was selected by a jury that includes leading art world figures such as Cecilia Alemani, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, and Hou Hanru.
They said, ‘her work is testament to a collective trauma, that is shared with the viewer but also transcended through the sublime yet humble and fragile aesthetics of the work.’
‘A floating embroidery between land and sky links the human condition and aspiration for gender justice with mythology and spirituality,’ the jury continued. ‘Rahman represents a future generation of artists that are committed to the ideals of community building and repair.’
This year’s Future Generation Art Prize received over 12,000 entries from almost 200 countries. Special prizes went to Tara Abdullah Mohammed Sharif (Iraq), Bekhbaatar Enkhtur (Mongolia), Dina Mimi (Palestine), Hira Nabi (Pakistan), Ipeh Nur (Indonesia), and Zhang Xu Zhan (Taiwan).
The exhibition of the 21 artists shortlisted for the prize remains on view through 19 January 2025 at the PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv. —[O]
Source Credit: Content and images from Ocula Magazine. Read the original article - https://ocula.com/magazine/art-news/ashfika-rahman-wins-future-generation-art-prize/