The Erste Bank Art Award is presented in cooperation with the Austrian Cultural Forum Ottawa and the SAW Centre Ottawa.
Jury Statement:
This recognition reflects Perschon's outstanding artistic achievements, which deeply impressed the jury. They commended Perschon's work for its sharp feminist position, at once subtly confrontational, softly resistant, delicately immediate and always concretely embodied. She establishes collaborative settings, where interaction guides the dramaturgy and shapes the imagery, dissolving the hierarchy between who looks and who is looked at, who films and who performs, who speaks and who doesn’t. The camera is no longer solely the prosthesis of the filmmaker’s body, but an active interface and a third eye in itself, exerting its own agency. In her films, the artist does not only deconstruct the objectifying patriarchal grasp on female bodies, which enclosed them in specific social functions (reproductive and domestic). She rather pays homage to inspirational resistant figures, to their working and living practices, weaving their singular paths within a transgenerational collaborative framework. Perschon expands the understanding of collective care, of social performance, of gendered labor, and ultimately, of feminist filmmaking.
Jury Members
Lisa Butzenlechner (Director of Austrian Cultural Forum Ottawa)
Ruth Goubran (Head of Sponsoring Erste Bank, Vienna)
Nevena Janković (BLOCKFREI Collective, Executive Management and Artistic Direction of DAS WEISSE HAUS, Vienna)
Hana Ostan Ožbolt (Independent Curator and Writer, Vienna)
Jason St-Laurent (Curator at SAW Centre, Ottawa)
In addition to solo exhibitions at DAS WEISSE HAUS and the SAW Centre in the autumn of 2024, the award includes a one-month residency in Ottawa to provide the artist with a space for creativity and inspiration, as well as the opportunity to expand their professional network / for expansion of professional network. The awarded amount of 5,000 €, provided by Erste Bank's Sponsoring Programme.
The Erste Bank Art Award has been presented annually since 2016, and this year marks its ninth edition. It is dedicated to artists who have participated in the programme of the Kunstverein das weisse haus and is allocated through a two-stage competition process.
Finalists 2024
Jeremias Altmann, Florian Aschka & Larissa Kopp, Oscar Cueto, Johannes Gierlinger, Lisa Großkopf, Elisabeth Molin, Ryts Monet, Yoshinori Niwa, Aykan Safoğlu, Christina Werner
Christiana Perschon (Austria, Vienna) is a filmmaker and visual artist. She often creates films with the protagonists in the form of performative collaborations as a principle of her documentary work in a setting where her camera acts as the receiver of the gaze in an intergenerational dialogue. Among other prizes, Perschon received the Österreichischen Kunstpreis für Filmkunst (2022); Best Camera Award, at Diagonale – Festival of Austrian Film (2019); Theodor Körner Preis for Fine Art (2018); Best Austrian Short Film, Vienna Shorts (2014). Her films have been screened at numerous international film festivals, including Viennale – International Filmfestival; Visions du Réel; Edinburgh International Film Festival, et al.