We are happy to announce that Shahana Rajani (@shanzroll) (b.1987, Pakistan) is the first recipient of the Han Nefkens…

We are happy to announce that Shahana Rajani (@shanzroll) (b.1987, Pakistan) is the first recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation – South Asian Video Art Production Grant in collaboration with Prameya Art Foundation, Delhi, India (@prameya_art_foundation) and in partnership with Nottingham Contemporary, UK (@nottm_contemp) ; Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai, UAE (@isharaartfoundation); Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) Japan (@mot_museum_art_tokyo); Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M HKA), Belgium (@mhkamuseum) and Para Site (Hong Kong) (@parasite.hk).

Jury Statement: "We are pleased to put forward Shahana Rajani's name as the recipient of the first South Asian Video Art Production Grant. Rajani situates her practice in an intricately woven web that binds the environment with social realities and sacred beliefs. She weaves together various kinds of material, media, testimonies and speculations that offer an image of our time from a vantage point that is at once particular and global.
Rajani's essayistic approach to the moving image is what the jury found most compelling. Her works invite reflection on the contemporary world where the question of ecology is as much cultural as it is natural, and constantly changing. Her videos therefore perform multiple roles, that include documenting, bearing witness, wandering, story-telling, fantasising and hoping. In times like this, it feels ever more important to listen rather than report. Rajani's work attempts to carry out a kind of listening, to things that are legible, illegible and the not yet legible in order to reflect on how every community's notion of belonging, resilience and resistance are as diverse as the histories they write.
We believe that this grant will enable Rajani to further the rigorous and sensitive methodology she has developed in these years."

1- Shahana Rajani. Courtesy of the artist
2,3,4,5 – Jury meeting held in person and virtually from Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai. Credits: Kristina Sergeeva for Seeing Things @kristinasergeeva__ @weareseeingthings
@hannefkensfoundation