Anahita Razmi wins Frieze Art Fair's Emdash Award

Anahita Razmi, China Girl, (2009)

The winner of the Emdash Award 2011 is the video and performance artist Anahita Razmi , who is based in Stuttgart. Razmi's previous works have dealt with issues concerning identity and gender, employing objects with a national and cultural significance or citing the work of high-profile female artists... Razmi will present a new commission that intends to draw attention to how Tehran's skyline was recently used by protestors after the Iranian presidential election. She will use choreographer Trisha Brown's 1971 work Roof Piece, which took place on 12 different rooftops over a ten-block area in downtown New York, as its point of departure. The work will be presented as a video installation at Frieze Art Fair. Razmi studied at Akademie für Bildende Künste, Stuttgart; Pratt Institute, New York; and Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Selected shows and projects from 2011 include: Videonale 13, Kunstmuseum Bonn; 'Division by Zero,' Carbon12, Dubai; 'Make - Believe – Remake,' Kunstverein Friedrichshafen. The Emdash Award allows an emerging artist based outside the UK to realise a major project at Frieze Art Fair as part of the critically acclaimed Frieze Projects programme. The award is supported by the Emdash Foundation, a private foundation with a mission to support new ideas and emerging talent across disciplines, from the arts and cultural projects to science.