ARTIST CIRCLE
KADIST regularly consults a group of five international artist for their opinions on critical issues, perspectives on international programs, and their views on the future of art. Once each year, the Artist Circle also nominates remarkable artist projects, from anywhere in the world, for an award, with the goal of honoring the contribution they make to their community through their art-related activity (including small-press publishing, education initiatives, artist-run institutions, and social projects).
2018 AWARDEES
MTL Collective
Nitasha Dhillon and Amin Husain are MTL Collective, a collaboration that joins research, aesthetics, organizing, and action in its practice. As MTL, they are co-founders of Tidal: Occupy Theory, Occupy Strategy magazine, Global Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.), the direct action arm of Gulf Labor Artist Coalition, Strike Debt and Rolling Jubilee, Direct Action Front for Palestine (DAFP), Decolonial Cultural Front, and most recently, Decolonize This Place, a movement space and decolonial formation in New York City that combine analysis, organizing, art, and action around five strands of struggle: Indigenous Struggle, Black Liberation, Free Palestine, Global Wage Worker, and De-Gentrification.
Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research
An autonomous cultural center founded in 2014 in Bethlehem, this multi-faceted project is devoted to educational, cultural, agricultural and research activities in a building in which the history and contemporary conditions of Bethlehem meet, enabling the production of new works of art and a vision towards the future. It is a learning hub for the Bethlehem community and beyond – a place to ask questions, exchange ideas, and grapple with the present-day situation. Dar Jacir holds workshops, seminars, landscape residencies and projects and has a small residency program for international and local artists and scholars to facilitate the circulation of creative and intellectual endeavors across a range of disciplines and media – in particular art and cinema. Dar Jacir is also working to preserving the Jacir Ottoman archives — a vast collection of rare visual and textual material from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
[website]
2017 AWARDEES
Complex Movements
Complex Movements is a Detroit-based artist collective supporting the transformation of communities by cultivating critical connections between ‘complex’ systems and social justice. Their interactive multimedia projects have addressed a range of local issues such as displacement, water shut-offs, police violence, immigration, Indigenous sovereignty, queer and trans justice, and surveillance. Complex Movements members include Wesley Taylor, Waajeed, ill Weaver/Invincible,Carlos (L05) Garcia, Sage Crump, also working in collaboration with Aaron Jones.
[website]
Guggenheim Aguascalientes
In 1895, the Grand Central National Foundry was established in Aguascalientes, Mexico, by the American industrialist Robert Solomon Guggenheim (1861-1949). “Dedicated to the processing of cooper and lead extracted from mines in the towns of Tepezala and Asientos, this foundry was presented by the government as a beacon of progress for this small city, therefore concessions and exemptions were granted by the local government.” 30 years were just enough for the total depletion of the resources, which was followed by abandonment by the company, but leaving behind a toxic legacy.
[website]
Syrian Student Project
In 2011 Syria became the site of a confluence of regional and world powers, resulting in an immense and ongoing tragedy. Gabe Huck and Theresa Kubasak found themselves working with Syrian refugees who had sought safety in Turkey. “We have had two years now of the Syrian Student Project, and a have helped dozens of young Syrians come to universities in the U.S. and Canada.” In 2016 Just World Books published a memoir of their experience in Syria: Never Can I Write of Damascus: When Syria Became Our Home”
[website]