Nominees: CIHAN CAKMAK, ULLA DEVENTER, JOJO GRONOSTAY, LIVIA MELZI, KAROLINA WOJTAS

The five artists nominated for the EMoP Arendt Award in relation to the theme of Rethinking Identity take different paths through singular reinterpretations that go beyond the classic clichés of identity.
Out of a more individual vision, Cihan Cakmak addresses the reminiscences of a Kurdish identity fracture by creating personal dreamlike situations challenging the social fragmentation and isolation she has undergone. By using the female body as an instrument of power, Ulla Deventer, throughout a particular aesthetic that draws on both photo documentation and contemporary art installation, deconstructs stereotypes about prostitution. Karolina Wojtas’ deconstructed self-representations and fragmentary perceptions of the body create new fictions that question the concepts of time and space from a social and relational perspective. In another register, Livia Melzi’s work confronts the archive and representations around identity through her research on the Tupinambá capes, from the Tupi warrior tribes of the Brazilian coast and originally used for anthropophagic rituals. The cultural identity issue is mixed with autobiographical elements in Jojo Gronostay’s (born in Germany with Ghanaian roots) multimedia work. Objects and images of objects and fragments of bodies are decontextualized and presented in unusual scales playing with the interrelations between colonialism and capitalism. These emerging artistic positions express different types of identity, whether individual, family, cultural or territorial.

EMoP jury members in 2022: Paul di Felice (president/Luxb), Emmanuelle Halkin (Paris, Fet’Art-Circulations), Verena Kaspar-Eisert (FotoWien), Rui Prata (Imago Lisboa), Maren Lübbke-Tidow (Kulturprojekte Berlin), Delphine Dumont (PhotoBrussels / Hangar).