Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award 2023 Winner Announced
Published on 13 June 2023
Sepideh Farzam, Sydney-based Iranian contemporary artist, was announced as the winner of the prestigious $40,000 biennial acquisitive Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award for 2023 for her work Losing Eyes for Freedom, 2023 at the official Award opening at the Wangaratta Art Gallery on Saturday 10 June.
The collaborative work was driven by Farzam’s observation and deep concern about the ongoing discrimination and severe restriction of women’s rights in Iran.
The work is inspired by the recent protests by women on the streets of Iran, following the death in police custody of young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, who was detained by the morality police for wearing her hijab or hair covering incorrectly. As a result, hundreds of people have been killed and thousands more imprisoned for demonstrating against the regime. Protesters have been violently attacked, and 500 have been blinded as a consequence.
Inspired by these terrible events, Sepideh Farzam commissioned a craft-woman (unnamed) to hand weave a carpet representing the young women hand in hand. Farzam then hand-stitched waxed threads through each girl’s face to represent the bleeding and blind eyes.
Farzam completed her Master of Studio Art in 2010 and Master of Fine Arts in 2013 at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, as well as having an undergraduate degree in Electronic Engineering from Azad University, Tehran, Iran. Farzam has held several solo exhibitions in Australia and Europe.
Judging the Award this year was Dr Rebecca Coates, an accomplished museum director, curator, public speaker, writer, and lecturer. In choosing the winner Coates commented on the important conversation and awareness the artwork presented to capture current issues of the time.
“This year, I was looking for artists’ works that demonstrated excellence in material practice in whatever form, and which talked to our shared understanding of the world in which we live. A work that touched the heart, the mind, and the soul. The winning work by Sepideh Farzam, Losing Eyes for Freedom (2023), a handwoven carpet with waxed threads, is impressive in scale, collaborative in nature, and speaks to our times. Like many of the weaving traditions it draws on, it was made through collaboration. And like many traditional crafts often done by women, alludes to the often-invisible nature of many of these repetitive tasks,” said Dr Coates.
“The work also talks to a larger truth, and the systemic abuse and treatment of women in many countries that continues to this day: forbidden to drive, forbidden to go to school, forbidden to protest, and the results of what, for us, are every-day acts. These are conversations that must continue to be had in a country like Australia, and ones that we can’t take for granted. "
The winning work for the highly commended Ruth Amery Award was also announced at the opening celebration by the Amery family as Kyra Mancktelow’s One continuous string, 2021.
Mancktelow, a Quandamooka woman with links to the Mardigan people of Cunnamulla, is a Brisbane-based multidisciplinary contemporary artist whose practice investigates legacies of colonialism, posing important questions such as how we remember and acknowledge Indigenous histories.
In the highly commended work, Mancktelow recreates the uniforms First Nations children were forced to wear at Moongalba (Myora mission). The attempt at assimilation was weakened by continuing traditional weaving practices.
The recently announced partnership between Wangaratta Art Gallery and the Kyamba Foundation where the prize money was increased from $10,000 to $40,000, ensures this award’s strong commitment to honouring the best practitioners of contemporary textile art from across Australia, the 2023 exhibition presents 29 works that all deserve recognition on a national platform. Visitors will not be disappointed by what is now the most prestigious textile art event in Australia.
The exhibition continues until 20 August 2023.
Image: Sepideh Farzam, Losing Eyes for Freedom, 2023, handwoven carpet, waxed threads, 210 x 166cm.