Margaret Tait Award 2021 | Shortlist Announced

We are delighted to announce the shortlist for the 2021 Margaret Tait Award. Andrew Black, Christian Noelle Charles, Winnie Herbstein, Mathew Wayne Parkin, and Tako Taal have been shortlisted from a pool of eligible artists who were nominated through an open call process, of which there was a record number of nominations this year.

The shortlisted artists have been invited to submit a proposal for the £15,000 commission, which will premiere at Glasgow Film Festival in 2022, and will subsequently tour with LUX Scotland alongside a solo exhibition at LUX’s space in London. The 2021 Award will be announced on Wednesday 3 March 2021.

The Margaret Tait Award is Scotland’s most prestigious annual moving image prize for artists. Inspired by the pioneering Orcadian filmmaker and poet Margaret Tait (1918 – 99), the award recognises experimental and innovative artists working with the moving image, offering a unique avenue of commissioning and production support and providing a high-profile platform to exhibit newly commissioned work.

Established in 2010, the Margaret Tait Award is a LUX Scotland commission delivered in partnership with Glasgow Film, with support from Screen Scotland. The only award of its kind in Scotland, it allows LUX Scotland, Glasgow Film and Screen Scotland to make a lasting and meaningful impact on the careers of promising filmmaking talent, support new commissions and forge new partnerships across the sector.

Kitty Anderson, Director, LUX Scotland, said, ​“Seeing the work submitted for this year’s Margaret Tait Award was a real privilege, as was conversation and discussion with the selection panel as we watched the works. The submissions demonstrate the wide range of excellent moving image work being produced by artists across all parts of Scotland”

Each year, the award is presented to an artist based in Scotland who has established a significant body of work over the past 5 – 10 years; is recognised by peers for their contribution to the artists’ moving image sector; and can demonstrate the significant impact that the award will have on the development of their practice.

Nominations are assessed by a panel of artists and professionals from across the fields of the visual arts and cinema. This year’s selection panel comprised of Alberta Whittle (2018 Margaret Tait Award recipient); Kim McAleese (Programme Director, Grand Union, Birmingham); Tina Fiske (Director, CAMPLE LINE, Dumfriesshire); Thomas Abercromby (artist and curator); Sean Greenhorn (Screen Scotland); and Kitty Anderson (Director, LUX Scotland, panel chair).

Previous recipients of the Margaret Tait Award include Emilia Beatriz, Jamie Crewe, Alberta Whittle, Sarah Forrest, Kate Davis, Duncan Marquiss, Charlotte Prodger, Rachel Maclean, Stephen Sutcliffe, Anne-Marie Copestake and Torsten Lauschmann.

Andrew Black lives in Glasgow, he makes experimental videos which often look at local ways of being, and queer relationships to place, memory, and the body. Andrew was on the committee of Transmission gallery in 2016 and 2017, and in 2018 took part in the Experimental Film & Moving Image Residency at Cove Park, and the Autumn Residency at Hospitalfield. He is currently working with Atlas Arts on the Plural Futures Community Film commission on the Isle of Skye.

Christian Noelle Charles is a Black visual practitioner currently living and working in Glasgow, Scotland. A Syracuse, New Yorker, Christian’s work is an exploration of representation and self-love in a contemporary world. ​“This girl right here” takes inspiration from trends of mass culture, modern performance techniques, and personal experiences. She also derives insight and energy from the direct relationship between performer and audience member. By using the mediums of printmaking, video, and performance, her work demonstrates a celebration of self-love and individuality. Christian earned a BFA at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City and a MFA at the Glasgow School of Art. Her work has been shown at various galleries and institutions like Tramway in Glasgow, Scotland, South London Gallery in London, and the Officine Grandi Riparazioni di Torino in Turin, Italy.

Winnie Herbstein graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2014 (Environmental Art). A committee member at Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, Herbstein has studied on the Women in Construction course at the City of Glasgow College and is a member of Slaghammers, a feminist welding group. Herbstein’s recent work has focussed on gendered labour and materials, historical and contemporary forms of organising, and the architecture and formation of space. These are explored through practice-based research, finding their output in the medium of video, sculpture and text-based works. She is currently working on a film exploring the histories of housing, health and activism in Scotland to be shown at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow in 2021. Recent solo exhibitions include: Brace (Jupiter Woods, London, 2019), STUDWORK (Glasgow International, 2018) and Riprap, Atelier am Ecke, Düsseldorf. She has shown in numerous group shows and film screenings and has been a visiting lecturer at Glasgow School of Art since 2017.

Mathew Wayne Parkin is an artist, writer and home cook mainly working in moving image with family and friends. They are particularly interested in autobiography, accent, intimacy, and speech acts in public. Their work is like an armpit, personal and intimate, of the body and relationships – smelling earthy. Mathew tries to resist dominant forms of media and sit against professionalised forms of moving image production through DIY and home video techniques, as well as queer crip analysis. Mathew has shown work with LUX, Videoclub, V22 Foundation, IMT Gallery, Grand Union, Workplace Gallery, Embassy Gallery, Spike Island, Eastside Projects, Tramway, S1 Artspace, the ICA, and the CCA Glasgow. Mathew has undertaken residencies at Triangle France – Astérides, Hospitalfield and the CCA Glasgow.

Tako Taal is an artist and programmer living in Glasgow. At stake in her artistic practice are the psychic structures of colonial relations and the question of how vivid they remain in the present. Tako was a 2019 RAW Academy fellow at RAW Material Company, Dakar and a Committee Member at Market Gallery, Glasgow, 2016 – 18. In 2020 her work was presented at Glasgow Short Film Festival, Tramway, Glasgow, and Glasgow Women’s Library. In 2021 she co-programmed GIVE BIRTH TO ME TOMORROW, LUX Scotland’s artists’ moving image festival.

Image credits, from top left to bottom right:

Andrew Black, ETERNITY KNOCKER, (video still), 2019. Courtesy the artist.Christian Noelle Charles, 7 AM Treatment – Hotel Edition, (video still) 2020. Courtesy the artist.Winnie Herbstein, Minutes, (video still), 2019. Courtesy of the artist.Mathew Wayne Parkin, work in progress still, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.Tako Taal, Halo Nevus, (video still), 2018. Courtesy of the artist.