LONDON.- Maeve Brennan and Imran Perretta are today announced recipients of the fifth edition of the Jerwood/FVU Awards. The project has awarded £20,000 to each artist, both within the first five years of their practice, to develop significant new moving-image works. The finished films will be shown from 6 April to 3 June 2018 at Jerwood Space, London, before touring across the UK.

The 2018 curatorial theme Unintended Consequences addresses how the best-laid plans can unravel and well-intentioned actions can provoke unexpected side-effects. In an echo of this theme, and at a moment when world events are so volatile and turbulent that it’s hard to predict what might happen next, the two artists’ proposals reflect the complex, entangled nature of contemporary experience.

Highlighting the whirring presence of wind turbines in the landscape, Maeve Brennan’s proposed work considers their ripple effects in the larger ecosystem. Forward-thinkingly green and benign, their arrival can have unanticipated outcomes, reminding us how the rhythms and patterns of the natural environment are intricately connected and interdependent.

At a time when social and geopolitical upheaval has prompted the mass displacement and migration of people across the globe, Imran Perretta’s proposed work examines how the face of the refugee has been dehumanised, often anonymised, and frequently demonised, by contrasting the personal testimony of asylum seekers with public perception and popular iconography.

The artists were selected from over 170 applications by Noor Afshan Mirza, artist and cofounder of no.w.here; George Vasey, currently working as a curator on the Turner Prize 2017 and curatorial fellow at Newcastle University; Steven Bode, Director, FVU; and Sarah Williams, Head of Programme, Jerwood Visual Arts.

George Vasey comments: "I was amazed at the quality and breadth of great applicants for this year’s Jerwood/FVU Awards and it was a very difficult decision to shortlist from the many applications. Maeve Brennan and Imran Perretta’s proposals felt rigorous, considered and prescient. Both these artists make serious art for serious times, and I’m hugely excited to see what they can do with the money and support from FVU and Jerwood Charitable Foundation at a formative moment in their careers."

The two new commissions will be exhibited at Jerwood Space 6 April – 3 June 2018.