08 May Award Presentation Ceremony for Ajim Juxta
One of the most important highlights of our recent participation in this year’s Young Art Taipei is certainly young artist Ajim Juxta being selected as one of the Top 3 Winners in this year’s Young Art Award. Each year, participating galleries nominate one artwork to be in the running for the award, of which the top three winners receive a 3-month residency, in addition to a trophy and certificate.
As Ajim could not travel to Taipei, Artemis Art accepted the award on his behalf. We thought it be fitting, however, that this accomplishment be celebrated here in Kuala Lumpur, and as such have planned for an Award Presentation Reception, scheduled for 3pm on Saturday, May 14 2016, to be held at our gallery in Publika, Kuala Lumpur.
UPDATE: It is with great pleasure to announce that our guest of honor for the event shall be none other than the Director General of Balai Seni Visual Negara, YBhg Prof. Dato Dr. Mohamed Najib bin Ahmad Dawa, who has graciously agreed to attend and present the award to Ajim.
We take this opportunity to extend an invitation to your to attend the reception, during which Ajim Juxta will deliver a short talk on his Arcology series, covering how and why this conceptual architectural design principle became the focus of this series of paintings. For more information, check out our Facebook Event listing, created for this reception.
Arcology: Convergence is currently on display at Artemis Art, together with Ajim’s other works, as well as artworks by three other artists who were part of our participation in Young Art Taipei 2016: Dedy Sufriadi, ERYN, and Haris Rashid.
About Arcology: Convergence
The following is a short essay submitted to the Young Art Award 2016 selection committee, as part of the submission requirements for short-listed artworks. A short-listing of five artworks and artists is announced, typically 2 weeks prior to the commencement of Young Art Taipei, after which the final judging to select the top three is done during the art fair itself.
Among many new strategies for human dwelling has been the conceptualization of the arcology – megalithic self-contained living complexes, a mixture of architecture and ecology. Dwellings where people live and work, seldom if ever leaving its boundaries. It is a conceptual fusion of nature and the man-made, combining aspects of living into a compact self-contained organic building.
In parallel is how technology has become central to our every day lives, latter generations exhibiting increasing dependence on gadgets to navigate day to day living.
These lead to questions about the future.
Dystopia Dwellers, featured in this work, is a conceptual metaphorical idea pertaining to us pursuing Utopia-like conditions but ending up dwelling in dystopia. Their appearance is portrayed as a projected culmination of what we see today as a growing dependence on technology, to satiate the “instant gratification” culture humankind has gravitated towards.
We’re so caught up in forming ideas for creating the perfect world, we neglect many aspects of the human habitat that may raise environmental issues, driving us to make more mistakes building that so-called ‘perfect world’.
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