About

Prameya Art Foundation collaborates with the Han Nefkens Foundation and partners with Nottingham Contemporary, UK; Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai, UAE; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT), Japan; Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M HKA), Belgium and Para Site (Hong Kong) for the inaugural Han Nefkens Foundation – South Asian Video Art Production Grant 2023. Prameya Art Foundation looks forward to welcoming the recipient to show their work in India in 2024-25.

Newly established in 2023, the Han Nefkens Foundation – The South Asian Video Art Production Grant 2023 is directed at artists living in South Asia and aims to be a tool for increasing contemporary artistic production in the video art field. This project was conceived through the vision and aspiration of the Prameya Art Foundation, with the objective of partnering with the Han Nefkens Foundation to conceptualise a production grant specifically for emerging and mid-career artists residing and practicing in South Asia, with a strong commitment to the medium of moving image art.

We are thrilled to announce Shahana Rajani (b.1987, Pakistan) is the winner of the inaugural Han Nefkens Foundation – South Asian Video Art Production Grant 2023, in collaboration with Prameya Art Foundation and in partnership with Nottingham Contemporary, UK; Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai, UAE; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT), Japan; Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M HKA), Belgium and Para Site (Hong Kong).

Shahana Rajani was selected as the recipient of the grant by a jury chaired by Han Nefkens and composed of:

Anahita Taneja (Founder and Chairperson, Prameya Art Foundation, India)
Shefali Somani (Founder and Vice Chairperson, Prameya Art Foundation, India)
Anushka Rajendran (Curator, Prameya Art Foundation, India)
Billy Tang (Director, Para-Site, Hong Kong) 
Kyongfa Che (Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan)
Nav Haq (Associate Director, M HKA, Belgium)
Sabih Ahmed (Director, Ishara Art Foundation, UAE)
Salma Tuqan (Director, Nottingham Contemporary, UK)
Smita Prabhakar (Founder and Chairperson, Ishara Art Foundation, UAE)

The Jury meeting was held in the presence of Hilde Teerlinck, CEO and Director of the Han Nefkens Foundation and Alessandra Biscaro, Coordinator of the Han Nefkens Foundation and was held at Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai, UAE. A special thanks to all of them.

Shahana Rajani will receive €15,000 for the production of a new work for which she will have 9 months to complete. The new work will be presented by all the partner institutions of the grant.

Shahana Rajani is a multi-disciplinary artist interested in tracing practices of belonging and resistance that are emerging at the intersections of sacred geographies, infrastructural violence and the climate crisis in Pakistan. Community-based and collaborative approaches to research are central to her practice. She uses video and sound to explore alternate, embodied ways of relating to the land and to each other. She is a co-founder of Karachi LaJamia (with Zahra Malkani) which is an experimental project exploring radical pedagogies in relation to struggles around land and water in the city.