Taloi Havini Awarded Artes Mundi Prize

Bougainville-born multidisciplinary artist Taloi Havini (Nakas/Hakö tribe) has been announced as the winner of the tenth Artes Mundi Prize. The biennial award is administered by Artes Mundi, an international arts organization founded in Cardiff, Wales, in 2002 to support contemporary visual art. Havini, who lives and works in Australia, investigates the intersections of identity, history, and nation-building within the matrilineal social dynamics of Bougainville, through a practice incorporating photography, audio/video, sculpture, immersive installation, and print. She will receive £40,000 (approximately $51,000). Havini beat out six other artists who were shortlisted for the prize.

These are Mounira Al Solh, Rushdi Anwar, Alia Farid, Carolina Caycedo, Nguyễn Trinh Thi, and Naomi Rincón Gallardo.RelatedEDDIE MARTINEZ TO REPRESENT SAN MARINO AT 60TH VENICE BIENNALEACTIVISTS SLING SOUP ON MONA LISA “In selecting Taloi Havini as the winner of the AM10 Prize, we were struck by the integrity of her work which is exceptional in its research, deployment of Indigenous knowledge, ethics of relationality, and aesthetic rigor,” noted the jury in a collective statement. “Material, story and site form the ground from which she creates installations that are both moving and visually stunning. An artist of our times, Havini’s work transforms our understanding of human domination over the natural world to posit living otherwise as communal, with respect for our non-human relations and a non-extractive economy.” Havini’s work and that of the six shortlisted artists is on view through February 25 at five venues across Wales: Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea; Mostyn, Llandudno; National Museum Cardiff and Chapter, both in Cardiff; and Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown. Havini’s work is presented at Mostyn and at Chapter. On view at the former isHabitat, an immersive, three-channel video work that is part of the artist’s continuing exploration of the history of resource extraction and Australia’s fraught relationship to the Pacific.

The new workWhere the rivers flow, (Panguna, Jaba, Pangara, Konawiru), a series of 40 prints the artist selected from her archives following a trip to the tropical island of Bougainville, is also on view there. At Chapter, Havini is presenting a new photographic work titledHyena (day and night), composed of a mural and a trio of light boxes. “I am elated and yet feel incredibly humbled to be receiving this prestigious prize,” said Havini in a statement. “It was an honor to have been nominated alongside these fellow artists. I am grateful to the jury and Artes Mundi for this opportunity during what has been a very challenging time globally.

It means a lot to me that my people’s Indigenous ancestral stories have had a presence in Cardiff and Llandudno. It is my hope that Welsh and wider audiences can find some connection to histories of extraction and the ongoing struggle for cultural, environmental and political self-determination that I speak to in Bougainville.” Past winners of the Artes Mundi Prize include Xu Bing, Yael Bartana, Teresa Margolles, Theaster Gates, John Akomfrah, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul..