Images and imagining

We launched the Jerwood Moving Image Awards, a major new prize for emerging artists working in digital moving art, for a range of reasons. We have always worked in film, but have been increasingly conscious that artists from the different disciplines we support are working digitally, with a different ethos and etiquette, and could be promoted and supported through a well-structured award scheme. We also wanted to learn more about this field.

We were clear from the outset that we wanted to reach artists who were prepared to be seen in the online context, but for whom we could also offer offline exposure during an exhibition at the Jerwood Space. We also wanted to attract artists from a range of artforms and practices. We chose the selection panel carefully, which resulted in a high quality range of films being sent to us. Our panellists included dancer and choreographer Wayne McGregor as Chair, joined by Marc Boothe, independent producer and founder of B3 Media; John Maeda, former Head of MIT’s Media Lab and now President of Rhode Island School of Design; artist Jane Prophet; journalist, author and historian Sukhdev Sandhu and Jules Wright, Director for the Wapping Project.

The process had several layers of shortlisting so that we could show as much of the best work as possible on the website. You can see work by artists in a wide range of artistic practice, from film, documentary, video and music to dance, installation and drawing. The panel watched, communicated with each other and selected work through a beautifully designed private system on the website, which by all accounts they enjoyed hugely. They longlisted 30 films, shortlisted eight for exhibition at the Jerwood Space, and finally chose three winners, each of whom received £10,000. The three winning films reflect the astonishing range and outstanding quality of submissions.

The winners were: Sophie Clements, for her film ‘Evensong’ which she conceived as a piece of visual music; Johnny Kelly for ‘Procrastination’, a wonderfully vivid and funny account of putting things off; and finally Rosie Pedlow and Joe King for ‘Sea Change’, which comes from a very different film-making tradition, and is a beautiful portrait of a coastal community in a time of change.

For us, the Jerwood Moving Image Awards mark the coming of age of a creative discipline of almost limitless possibility. The three winning films fulfil the potential of putting digital technology in the hands of artists, and will hopefully encourage audiences, artists and critics alike to engage more closely with the artform. It is early days yet, but from the reaction of all the shortlisted artists, and especially the winners, simply getting this level of exposure has already had an impact on their ability to get their work seen, attract funding interest and encouraged them to develop their next projects. We have learned a huge amount about this world, and will be working on how we can use this learning not only within the context of this award, but in all our other work as well.