The Jarman Award is a landmark moment in the cultural calendar. The prestigious annual prize, now in its eighteenth year, recognises emerging creatives working with moving image across the UK. It is named after visionary artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman (1942 – 1994), platforming work that embodies the spirit and legacy of his experimental approach. Its list of former recipients is a who’s-who of major players in the contemporary art scene. Winners include Heather Phillpson, Imran Perretta, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Luke Fowler, and Sin Wai Kin. The 2025 shortlisted creatives are Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah, Karimah Ashadu, Onyeka Igwe, Morgan Quaintance, George Finlay Ramsay and Hope Strickland. They harness the transportive power of film, journeying from the inner-city streets of Lagos and London to villages in Italy and Algeria. These films are visually striking: from a beautifully shot black and white piece that conveys the timeless search for belonging, to a flickering abstract meditation on the nature of physical labour. Each artist presents a vital and creative approach to the moving image. The jury, from organisations including Barbican, Channel 4 and Whitechapel Gallery, says: “This year’s shortlist for the Jarman Award is a powerful reflection of the richness and diversity of moving image practice in the UK today. The nominees each bring a distinct voice and vision, pushing the boundaries of form, storytelling, and experimentation.”
Hope Strickland uses archival material, digital and analogue film formats to consider how relations of care wrestle with systems of power and control. Her shortlisted piece, a river holds a perfect memory (2024), meanders gently across waterways in Jamaica, from a leisurely raft on the Martha Brae River to a night-time boat trip in Falmouth’s bioluminescent Lagoon. The film shifts focus to the impact of industry on the waters of northern England, exploring the entanglement of these supposedly disparate communities. In 2023, Strickland received the Aesthetica Emerging Art Prize, establishing her reputation as a major new figure in the moving image space. She joins a raft of remarkable Aesthetica alumni who have since gone on to be recognised by the Jarman Award jury, including Jasmina Cibic, Jenn Nkiru, Larry Achiampong and last year’s Jarman winner, Maryam Tafakory. It is an impressive list of figures, each of whom are driving the narrative around the place of artists’ film in contemporary culture.
Also shortlisted is duo Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah, who take a cinematic approach to ongoing legacies of colonialism and the power of community. Their film And still, it remains (2023) takes viewers to Mertoutek, a remote village in Southern Algeria’s Hoggar Mountains. Meditative shots of landscapes and ancient rock paintings are intercut with quiet scenes from everyday life, as the film uncovers the lasting impact of French nuclear testing that took place nearby in the 1960s.
Karimah Ashadu’s recent films, which are often presented within sculptural installations, include Machine Boys (2024), a portrait of the daring and macho world of motorcycle taxi drivers in Lagos. High speed tricks, roaring engines and thick dust result in an explosive film that explores issues of labour and identity, and ultimately reveals a poignant vulnerability that questions Nigeria’s patriarchal culture.
George Finlay Ramsay’s poetic works explore ideas of myth and ritual through an artful approach to 16mm analogue filmmaking. Flex, Wax & Glass (2023-2025) is a trilogy that documents a Catholic bloodletting rite unique to Southern Italy. The Age of the Son (2024) sees the son of a Calabrian lorry driver assume his late father’s mantle, leading the Vattenti procession during Holy Week while working through his own grief.
Moving image artist, writer and musician Morgan Quaintancebrings together multiple media in his expanded art practice. The result is a richly layered body of films that has an intense sensory impact. Efforts of Nature (2023) considers the passage of time and processes of change from two distant perspectives: the existential level of the body and the planetary level of shifting geological conditions. Blending low resolution footage, 16mm film and satellite imagery, the film moves between non-fiction and abstraction.
Onyeka Igwe draws on research to explore complex subjects with an evocative visual style.The Miracle on George Green (2022) presents a picture of the protests against, and collective resistance to, the building of the M11 link road in Hackney. Born out of Igwe’s childhood memories and walks through Hackney Marshes in lockdown, the work expands outward through archival materials to contemplate histories of protest.
This year’s jury features pioneering figures in contemporary art: Matthew Barrington, Cinema Curator, Barbican; Shaminder Nahal, Commissioning Editor, Arts and Topical, Channel 4; Maryam Tafakory, 2024 Jarman Awardee; Gilane Tawadros, Director, Whitechapel Gallery; Nicole Yip, Director, Spike Island and Film London Board Member. The winner of the Jarman Award will be announced in November 2025, and the selected artists’ pieces will be presented as a show at Whitechapel Gallery, London, from 18 November – 14 December. It is the first time in the award’s history that all of the shortlisted creatives will exhibit, offering audiences a unique opportunity to experience the breadth of talent in the artist’s film space today.
The 2025 shortlist remind us that Derek Jarman’s spirit of innovation, risk-taking and boundary-breaking is alive and well. In an image-saturated world, increasingly dominated by AI-generated content, the Jarman Award stands as a beacon of inventiveness and ambition. As artist, filmmaker and patron John Akomfrah puts it, those featured in the prize say “we want to find another way of doing thing.” This year’s artists push beyond the conventional, opening the doors to new perspectives on culture, society and creation.
The Jarman Award 2025 shortlisted artists will be featured in an exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery 18 November – 14 December 2025: whitechapelgallery.org
For more information about the prize, visit: filmlondon.org.uk
Words: Emma Jacob
Image Credits:
1&5. Onyeka Igwe, The Miracle On George Green (2022).
2. Karimah Ashadu, Plateau (2021-2022), video still. Courtesy of the artist and Sadie Coles HQ.
3. Hope Strickland, a river holds a perfect memory (2024), video still, commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and Touchstones, Rochdale with support from HOME, Manchester.
4. Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah, And still, it remains (2023), film still.
