The V&A and Art Jameel have announced Khandakar Ohida (b. 1993, India) as the winner of the 7th edition of the Jameel Prize, an international award worth £25,000 for contemporary art and design inspired by Islamic tradition. The triennial competition, founded in 2009 in collaboration with Art Jameel, focusses this year on artists working with moving image and digital media.
An exhibition of works by the winner and shortlisted artists is on displayat the V&A South Kensington fromNovember 30th, 2024to March 16th, 2025.
Khandakar Ohida received the award for the film ‘Dream Your Museum’ (2022) a portrait of her uncle, Khandakar Selim, who has built an extraordinary collection of objects and memorabilia over the last 50 years. Ohida documented the collection as it was displayed in her uncle’s traditional mud home, which has since been torn down. The work challenges the formal nature of museums in India, particularly as bastions of nationalism that offer little room for alternative narratives. ‘Dream Your Museum’ counters the colonial museum model, instead inviting people to find value in the seemingly banal objects that are an intrinsic part of their lives. As members of India’s Muslim community, both Selim and the artist confront the socio-political hierarchies that shape identity, offering a nuanced exploration of cultural representation and belonging.
For ‘Jameel Prize: Moving Images’ the film is accompanied by an installation of objects from Selim’s collection, which he transports in simple metal trunks. This portable museum is displayed informally as a jumble of curious items, an installation choice intended to defy the authority and neatness typically found in conventional museums. In this work the artist invites us to envision a future where cultural heritage is liberated from the constraints of convention and exclusivity.
Tristram Hunt, V&A Director and chair of the Jameel Prize judging panel,said,
“The jury praised the quiet power of Khandakar’s beautiful cinematic work, ‘Dream Your Museum’. The film and installation of objects from her uncle’s vast esoteric collection speak to the experience of Muslim communities in India, and challenge the authority of conventional museums.”
Antonia Carver, Art Jameel Director,said:
“We are so thrilled to celebrate the seventh edition of the Jameel Prize, awarded to Khandakar Ohida based on a rigorous selection process. The significance of this prize lies in its ability to highlight the innovative spirit at the heart of practices that draw on the legacy of Islamic art and design. This year, by focussing on moving image and digital media, the prize sheds light on artists who are redefining visual storytelling in form and content, and are engaging with urgent issues – from ecology and spirituality to the resilience of community histories”
Curated by the V&A’s Jameel Curator of Contemporary Art from the Middle East, Rachel Dedman, ‘Jameel Prize: Moving Images’ will go on tour to Cartwright Hall, Bradford, as part of their year as the UK’s City of Culture in 2025, and to Hayy Jameel, Jeddah.
The shortlisted artists for ‘Jameel Prize: Moving Images’whereSadik Kwaish Alfraji,Jawa El Khash,Alia Farid,Zahra Malkani,Khandakar Ohida, Marrim Akashi Sani, andRami Haerizadeh, Rokni HaerizadehandHesam Rahmanian(as a collective). Spanning film, sculpture, photography, installation, sound, performance, and VR, the finalists’ works engage with issues relating to water, ecology, landscape, and spirituality, and the ways in which extractive industries and political dynamics shape the environmental and social fabric of the Middle East and South Asia. The artists address how history is written – examining the making of monuments and their deconstruction through acts of iconoclasm, and the forging of alternative approaches to museums and collections. Many works offer personal testaments to community, resilience, and connection, with hand-drawn animation and photography used for powerful storytelling.
Applicants were sought through an open call in 2023, which considered artists working with film, video and time-based media, alongside those engaging with established and emerging digital technologies. From over 300 submissions, seven finalists were selected by an international jury composed of artistsMorehshin AllahyariandAjlan Gharem(winner of the previous Prize,Jameel Prize: Poetry to Politics), curatorSadia Shirazi, and academicLaura U. Marks, and chaired by V&A DirectorTristram Hunt.
Over the past six editions, the Jameel Prize has received applications from more than 1,700 artists from over 40 countries, exhibited the work of 56 artists and designers, and toured to 18 venues globally.
About
Khandakar Ohida is a visual artist and film practitioner who works between Kolkata and New Delhi. Her areas of interest lie in lens-based mediums, film installations, drawings, and paintings, influenced by her surroundings, such as personal memory, marginalised voices, collective protest, resistance, Decolonisation, and nonlinear stories interacting with various societal layers. Her film ‘Dream Your Museum’ was showcased as part of the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art in Berlin, Germany, in 2022, and screened at the 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia (as part of the 4th module of the Ukraine pavilion public program) in Venice, Italy, in 2022, and at MUDAM, The Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg, in 2024. Emami Art “Experimental Film Festival, 2022, Kolkata. She has also featured her works at Ames Yavuz Gallery Sydney 2024, Bikaner House, Delhi 2024, Serendipity Art Festival, Goa, 2023, 2019, The Festival of Video Art by Indian Contemporary Artists at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, Goethe -Institute/ Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai, and Museum of Goa 2019-2020, ‘Ahang’ a travel exhibition in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi, 2019 and Students Biennale 2016 Part of KMB, Kerala. She received the Inlaks Fine Arts Award in 2023 and the Generator Co-operative Art Production Fund, in 2023. She will also participate in the Jan van Eyck Academie residency in the Netherlands in 2025. Khandakar completed her BFA from Govt. College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta, 2016, and MFA from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi 2018.
The Jameel Prize, founded in partnership with Art Jameel, was conceived after the renovation of the V&A’s Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art. The gallery is an outstanding presentation of the rich artistic heritage of the Islamic Middle East, and the Prize aims to raise awareness of the thriving interaction between contemporary practice and the great historical legacy of the region. It contributes to a broader understanding of Islamic culture as well as its place in the contemporary world.
Launched in 2009, the winner of the first Jameel Prize wasAfruz Amighifor her work1001 Pages(2008), an intricate hand-cut screen made from the woven plastic used to construct refugee tents. In 2011Rachid Koraïchiwas awarded the prize, for his workLes Maîtres Invisibles(The Invisible Masters,2008), a group of embroidered cloth banners which display Arabic calligraphy, symbols and ciphers to explore the lives and legacies of the 14 great mystics of Islam. In 2013 the winner of Jameel Prize 3 wasDice Kayek, a Turkish fashion label established in 1992 by Ece and Ay?e Ege, for their seriesIstanbul Contrast, a collection that evokes Istanbul’s architectural and artistic heritage. This was the first time the Jameel Prize was awarded to designers. In 2016, the winner of Jameel Prize 4 wasGhulam Mohammad, who trained in the Islamic tradition of miniature painting, for his works of paper collage. In 2018 the first ever joint winners of Jameel Prize 5 wereMehdi Moutashar— awarded for his bold work of minimalist abstraction rooted in Islamic geometry andMarina Tabassum— for her visionary Bait ur Rouf mosque built in 2012 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In 2021,Ajlan Gharemwas announced as winner of the sixth Jameel Prize, for his workParadise Has Many Gates.This work, shown in the exhibition titledJameel Prize: Poetry to Politics,took the form of a mosque made of chicken wire, addressing the complex legacies of Islam and its politicisation worldwide.
From its inception, the Jameel Prize has toured internationally, to countries including Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey, Russia, Singapore, Korea, the United States, Argentina, Chile and the UAE. Since 2018, the Jameel Prize has been triennial, with each edition focussed on an artistic or design discipline. The sixth edition,Jameel Prize: Poetry to Politics,was devoted to disciplines of design, while this upcoming edition focuses upon moving image and digital practices.
The Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art has been made possible by the Jameel family, who have been supporting the V&A since 2006. It is dedicated to the memory of Mr Abdul Latif Jameel, the late founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Group, and his wife Nafisa, by Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel, their son. The opening of the Gallery was followed by the establishment of the Jameel Prize for contemporary art and design inspired by Islamic tradition, in partnership with Art Jameel. The V&A’s Jameel Gallery is a treasure trove of art and design from across the Islamic world, ranging from the 7th century to the 20th century. Highlights include the Ardabil Carpet, the world’s oldest dated carpet and one of the largest, most beautiful and historically important.
Art Jameel supports artists and creative communities. Founded and supported by the Jameel family philanthropies, the independent organisation is headquartered in Saudi Arabia and the UAE and works globally. Art Jameel’s programmes – across exhibitions, commissions, research, learning and community-building – are grounded in a dynamic understanding of the arts as fundamental to life and accessible to all.
Art Jameel’s two institutions – Hayy Jameel, a dedicated complex for the arts and creativity in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Jameel Arts Centre, an innovative institution for contemporary art and ideas in Dubai, UAE – are complemented by digital initiatives plus collaborations with major institutional partners and a network of practitioners across the world.
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