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Hao Jingban wins the Han Nefkens Foundation - ARCOmadrid Video Art Award 2019

Madrid, 2 March 2019: Hao Jingban (China, 1985) is the winner of the Han Nefkens Foundation - ARCOmadrid Video Art Award 2019, in collaboration with Matadero Madrid.

Hao Jingban wins the Han Nefkens Foundation - ARCOmadrid Video Art Award 2019 for the aesthetic strength and the capacity for critical self-reflection in her work, which is aesthetically impeccable and projected towards long-term practice.

Established by the Han Nefkens Foundation in collaboration with ARCOmadrid in 2018, this annual award aims to increase contemporary artistic production in the video art field by supporting artists who will be called to develop a new work using the annual theme of ARCO as a point of departure. In line with the central theme of ARCOmadrid 2020 ‘It's Just a Matter of Time’, where artistic practices will be observed from the work of Felix Gonzáles-Torres, Hao Jingban will produce a video art piece that takes as a reference the symbolic title of the work of Gonzáles-Torres 'Perfect Lovers'. Under this title, the artist is called to continue the reflection on the vital themes of love, life and time.

Hao Jingban (China, 1985) has unanimously been chosen as the winner of the Han Nefkens Foundation - ARCOmadrid Video Art Award 2019 in collaboration with Matadero Madrid.

Using documentary film's language and structure, Hao Jingban explores social movements to suggest how current history is produced. Basing each piece in solid social and cultural research, the artist is a great storyteller, executing her work in a highly professional and aesthetic manner. The jury feels that Hao's work moves smoothly between hectic realities and leisurely traditions, creating multi-levelled power stories.

Hao Jingban receives $15.000 funding for the production of a new work which will be presented next year at Matadero Madrid to coincide with ARCOmadrid 2020. The Han Nefkens Foundation will also present the work in various art centres worldwide throughout 2020 and 2021.

Hao Jingban has been elected concertedly by a judging panel chaired by Han Nefkens, Founder of the Han Nefkens Foundation, and joined by Ana Ara, Curator of Programmes at Matadero Madrid, Manuel Segade, Director of Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Sunjung Kim, President of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, and Rein Wolfs, Director of the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn.

The artist has gained international recognition for her Beijing Ballroom project (2012–2016), where she traces the current ballrooms in Beijing to the two waves of ballroom dancing in the early 1950s and Post-Cultural Revolution in late 1970s, a work that focuses on performances to unveil the history of contemporary China. By including a wide range of found footage and recordings, archival materials, interviews and voiceovers, Hao interweaves complex historical narratives and social movements into the structures of experimental, documentary and essay films. In 2016, Hao won the Huayu Youth Award Grand Jury Prize in Art Sanya 2016. In 2017, she won the Young Artist of the Year award at the 11th Award of Art China and the International Critics’ Prize at the 63rd Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen. Hao Jingban completed a BA in Media and Communication from Goldsmiths College in 2007, and an MA in Film Studies from the University of London in 2010.