Submission: October 1, 2021
Registration: October 1, 2021
Language: English
Location: Please see details below
Prizes: Please see details below
Type: Built
Tamayouz Excellence Award is delighted to launch its newest award, the biannual Dia al-Azzawi Prize for Public Art, as part of its programme of championing and celebrating the built and urban environment worldwide. The new award is named after the internationally celebrated Iraqi artist Dia al-Azzawi, one of the pioneers of modern Arab art, and will run biannually.
Aims
- Recognise artworks within the urban context that have had a transformative impact on their community.
- Empower and support young and emerging artists, architects, designers and studios.
- Respond to a challenging phase for public art in the Near East and North Africa — a phase overshadowed by vulgarity and decline in public taste.
- Create educational material in both Arabic and English based on the academic review, analysis and research undertaken on the submitted entries.
- Introduce emerging and established regional artists to a wider community, nurturing a long-lasting network and community of like-minded individuals interested in the betterment of regional urban environments.
- Establish dialogue with local authorities responsible for public art with the mission of improving the state of public art in the Middle East and North Africa.
Eligibility
- The Dia al-Azzawi Prize for Public Art seeks transformative permanent and temporary projects of all types ranging from murals, sculptures, monuments, urban performances, installations, public spaces, graffiti, architecture and planning. These artworks should not be exhibited in private spaces or as part of private collections, but rather in public spaces ensuring their accessibility to wider communities.
- To be eligible for consideration in the inaugural cycle of the award, projects must be completed between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2020 and should have been exhibited for at least one year, thereby verifying their impact on the surrounding environment.
- There are no fixed criteria for the type, nature, or cost of public art projects, but eligible projects must be based in any of the following countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yeme
The prize
The winner of the Dia al-Azzawi Prize for Public Art will receive a statue and medal designed by Dia al-Azzawi. If the winner is a team, each member will receive a medal while the whole team will receive one statue. Travel and flight expenses for the winner will also be provided to attend the annual ceremony (if the team is a winner, then the team must select a representative to have their travel costs covered).
