Today, Frieze named Adham Faramawy as the recipient of the 2023 Artist Award at Frieze London, realised in partnership with Forma for the fifth consecutive year. The Artist Award provides an artist with the opportunity to debut an ambitious new commission at Frieze London at a formative moment in their career. As part of the fair’s anchor programme of special initiatives and collaborations, the accolade has been a cornerstone of Frieze’s artist-led projects over the past two decades and seen recipients such as Simon Fujiwara (2010), Himali Singh Soin (2019), Alberta Whittle (2020), Sung Tieu (2021) and Abbas Zahedi (2022).
Titled And these deceitful waters, Faramawy’s video and sculptural assemblage will examine the history of the Thames, its underground tributaries and the plants along its banks as a way of exploring the river as a colonial artery and a site of ecological collapse. Employing a three-person dance performance with music and spoken word, the winning commission will tell the migration stories of the river and its flora, surveying how they build national identity and can construct, reinforce and dissolve borders. The work will weave tales together, illustrating how land becomes tangled into projects of nation building, colonisation, ecological collapse, toxicity and migration. Faramawy’s project will be installed at the entrance to Frieze London tent.
Titled And these deceitful waters, Faramawy’s video and sculptural assemblage will examine the history of the Thames, its underground tributaries and the plants along its banks as a way of exploring the river as a colonial artery and a site of ecological collapse. Employing a three-person dance performance with music and spoken word, the winning commission will tell the migration stories of the river and its flora, surveying how they build national identity and can construct, reinforce and dissolve borders. The work will weave tales together, illustrating how land becomes tangled into projects of nation building, colonisation, ecological collapse, toxicity and migration. Faramawy’s project will be installed at the entrance to Frieze London tent.
June 29, 2023
