Connecting people through art 

Indonesian artist Timoteus Anggawan Kusno (b.1989, Indonesia) is the winner of the Han Nefkens Foundation - Loop Barcelona Video Art Production Grant 2021, in collaboration with the Fundació Joan Miró, Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing; MoCA Taipei; ILHAM Gallery, Kuala Lumpur; Centre d'Art Contemporain, Genève and Art Hub Copenhagen.

Han Nefkens, Han Nefkens Foundation: ”I’m thrilled that the creative exchange of ideas during the jury meeting has contributed to the choice of an artist whose deeply authentic and powerful work will undoubtedly make an impact on the visitors to the worldwide art institutions where his new production will be shown.”

Kusno was selected for his alluring multi-layered video works that construct a powerful language about our contemporary relationship as humans with the world. The jury highlights Kusno’s “deft use of sound in his practice, in addition to his compelling use of mythology and traditional art forms… His video works demonstrate a level of maturity through a visual and economic efficiency.”

Timoteus Anggawan Kusno receives $15.000 funding for the production of a new work which will be presented first at the Fundació Joan Miró and at a later stage, the new production will be presented also at MoCA Taipei; ILHAM, Kuala Lumpur, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Genève; Art Hub Copenhagen and Inside Out Art Museum, Beijing.

Kusno says: “As a spectator, moving images left me holes to sneak in; to dive into the unseen, and reflect back to our baggage personally, which is inevitably connected to our collective experiences and context. Figuring out that my works resonate with others’ experiences is such a meaningful moment. I feel grateful to have the opportunity to keep moving and making projects in these hard times, in these years of uncertainties. I thank the Han Nefkens Foundation – Loop Barcelona Video Art Production Grant for trusting me with the 2021 video production award. These will be exciting years to collaborate together ahead.”

Established by the Han Nefkens Foundation in collaboration with Loop Barcelona in 2018, the Han Nefkens Foundation - Loop Barcelona Video Art Production Grant 2021involves the production of a video art work. The winning artist (or collective of artists) receives $15,000 for the production of a new work. In order to consolidate the candidates’ career, the Award appraises emerging promising artists, who are 40 years old or less, living in Asia and whom have established a solid trajectory but have not yet been given recognition by important international art institutions.

Kusno was selected by a judging panel chaired by Han Nefkens, Founder of the Han Nefkens Foundation, joined by Emilio Alvarez, Founder LOOP Barcelona; Marko Daniel, Director Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; Carol Yinghua Lu, Director Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing; Huai-ya Lin, Researcher of MoCA Taipei; Jacob Fabricius, Director Art Hub Copenhagen; Rahel Joseph, Director ILHAM, Kuala Lumpur and Andrea Bellini, Director Centre d'Art Contemporain, Genève. The judging took part in the presence of Hilde Teerlinck, General Director of the Han Nefkens Foundation and Alessandra Biscaro, Coordinator of the Han Nefkens Foundation.

The artists were scouted by internationally recognized art critics and curators (nominated by each participant institution).
The scouts for 2021 were Billy Tang, Deborah Joyce Holman, Grace Samboh, Hao Hu, Henry Heng Lu, Joowon Park, Joselina Cruz, Mark Teh Kah Weng, Mohamed Almusibli, Vdrome (Filipa Ramos and Andrea Lissoni), Wei Yu, Shuai Yin and Zhang Xu Zhan.

Timoteus Anggawan Kusno is an artist who composes and presents his works in various mediums, including installations, drawings, moving-images, and institutional projects. He renders narratives that stretch in the liminality of fiction and history, imagination and memory. Kusno draws questions on the coloniality of power and what is left unseen. He had been commissioned and shown his work internationally in several cultural institutions and biennales, including Mumbai City Museum, India, Center for Fine Art Brussels, Belgium, Biennale Jogja XIV Equator #4: Indonesia-Brazil, and 13th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea, among others. His artworks are also part of the museum collection in the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) Seoul, Korea, and Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) Taipei. He is collaborating with Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, to develop an artistic project that responds to the artifacts and the long history of colonial wounds and resistances for the “Revolusi!” exhibition in 2022. Along with his artistic practice, since 2013, he has also been developing the Centre for Tanah Runcuk Studies (CTRS). This (fictional) institution project conducts experimental studies on a (lost) territory in the Dutch East Indies called Tanah Runcuk, involving historians, ethnographers, fellow artists, curators, and writers.