The Mosaic Rooms is pleased to present a selection of work from the 2012 A. M. Qattan Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year Award (YAYA12) for the first time in the UK.

The biennial award – organised by the Foundation’s Culture and Arts Programme in the Occupied West Bank city of Ramallah – is open to young artists under 30 of Palestinian descent, from any part of the world. From the 2012 finalists the first, second and third prize award winners were selected by a jury of internationally renowned artists and writers– Negar Azimi, Nicola Gray, Khaled Hourani, Rula Halawani and Marco Nereo Rotelli.

On show at the Mosaic Rooms is 2012 winner Jumana Manna. The multimedia artist was awarded the first prize for her video installation A Sketch of Manners. The work was inspired by an archival photograph taken in 1942 at the last known masquerade party in Palestine. The video recreates an unconventional bon vivant aspect of Palestinian urban life before 1948. It is also a multilayered work that reflects on the history of photography, notions of modernity within the region, and the role of artifice and farce in society.

In Mirna Bamieh’s two channel video installation, This Mined Land of Ours, the artist extracts from online videos filmed on mobile phones the outline of individuals who dared to cross the border between Syria and the Occupied Golan Heights on Nakba remembrance day in 2011. Nakba or catastrophe in Arabic, refers to the expulsion and dispossession of over 700,000 Palestinians from their homeland in 1948. Bamieh was awarded joint third prize for this piece, which reflects her artistic concerns with political landscapes, liminal spaces, and the construction of collective memory.

The exhibition also includes work by Majd Abdel Hamid, Shada Safadi and OmarJoseph Nasser Khoury. Second prize winning artist Dirar Kalash will perform his sound art piece, Stonified Voice, at the Launch Party. His work is based on everyday life as a phenomenon, which is then subjected to live processing, composition and decomposition in a unique live sonic performance.

YAYA12 is curated by Yazan Khalili and Reem Shilleh. Khalili is a Palestinian artist and curator who has contributed work to numerous group shows internationally. Shilleh is a curator and researcher, and runs Events & Outreach in the Culture & Arts Programme at the A.M Qattan Foundation. Visit the YAYA12 blog here.

The exhibition catalogue is available online and in our bookshop.  BUY NOW.

Open Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 6pm, Entrance Free

Follow the exhibition on twitter #YAYA12

YAYA12 is proud to be part of Shubbak 2013: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture.