First Preview: ‘And these deceitful waters’ by Frieze London Artist Award Winner Adham Faramawy

Watch a preview of Adham Faramawy's new artist commission And these deceitful waters for Frieze London 2023. Faramawy was recently named as recipient of the 2023 Artist Award at Frieze London, realised in partnership with Forma. The award provides an artist with the opportunity to debut an ambitious new commission at Frieze London at a formative moment in their career. 

The Artist Award has been a cornerstone of Frieze’s artist-led projects over the past two decades. Previous recipients of the accolade include Himali Singh Soin (2019), Alberta Whittle (2020), Sung Tieu (2021) and Abbas Zahedi (2022). 

Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Frieze London will introduce a series of new initiatives, including special section Artist-to-Artist, alongside the debut of Fatoş Üstek as curator of Frieze Sculpture. Frieze London will take place concurrently with Frieze Masters in The Regent’s Park from October 11-15, 2023. Both fairs are supported by global lead partner Deutsche Bank, continuing two decades of shared commitment to artistic excellence.

Eva Langret, Director of Frieze London, said: ‘Initiated over 15 years ago, with an illustrious list of recipients, the Frieze Artist Award has proved an invaluable platform for early-career artists. The award reflects Frieze London’s ongoing commitment to championing new voices, a tenet that is woven into the fair’s programming. The jury strongly endorsed Faramawy for their prescient, compelling video installations that sit at the intersection of migration and ecology. I would like to express my gratitude to Forma for their continued collaboration on this important initiative.’ 

Chris Rawcliffe, Artistic Director, Forma, added: ‘2023 marks the fifth iteration of Forma’s collaboration on the Frieze Artist Award. To date, each of the artists we’ve worked with on the award has seen significant shifts in their national and international standing – contributing to the development of artistic careers at pivotal moments in their practice. This year, Forma are thrilled to continue our Frieze partnership, co-commissioning and co-producing a new work by Adham Faramawy. Faramawy’s practice is greatly deserving of the platform that the Frieze Artist Award provides, and we are excited to be working with an artist so politically astute and poetically sensitive. We look forward to supporting the realisation of Faramawy’s new commission and securing its legacy.’ 

Faramawy’s winning commission, And these deceitful waters, will be a video and sculptural assemblage examining the history of the Thames, its underground tributaries and the plants along its banks as a way of exploring the river as a colonial artery and a site of ecological collapse. Employing a three-person dance performance with music and spoken word, Faramawy’s work will tell the migration stories of the river and its flora, surveying how they build national identity and can construct, reinforce and dissolve borders. The work will weave tales together, illustrating how land becomes co-opted into projects of nation building, colonisation, ecological collapse, toxicity and migration. Faramawy’s project will be installed at the entrance to Frieze London this year. 

The 2023 Artist Award at Frieze London was selected by a jury of leading industry figures, comprising Andrew Bonacina (Independent Curator), Carmen Juliá (Curator, Spike Island), Eva Langret (Director of Frieze London), Chris Rawcliffe (Artistic Director, Forma) and Abbas Zahedi (Winner of the Frieze London Artist Award 2022). 

About Adham Faramawy 

Adham Faramawy is an artist of Egyptian descent based in London. Their work spans media including moving image, sculptural installation, photography, print and painting, engaging with concerns of materiality, touch, the body and toxicity to question ideas of the natural in relation to marginalised communities. 

Faramawy has screened work at the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate Modern and Tate Britain, London; Serpentine Gallery, London and Serpentine Ecologies Symposia, London. Their recent exhibitions include Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Arts, London; Somerset House, London; Buffalo University Gallery, Buffalo; The Bemis Center, Omaha; Niru Ratnam Gallery, London (solo), and Cell Projects, London (solo). They were shortlisted for the Film London Jarman Award 2017 and 2021.

TICKETS TO FRIEZE LONDON & FRIEZE MASTERS 2023 

Early bird tickets to the fairs are now sold out. Limited full-price tickets have just been released. Don't miss out, book yours now. 



TICKETS 



To keep up to date on all the latest news from Frieze, sign up to the Frieze newsletter at frieze.com, and follow @friezeofficial on Instagram, Twitter and Frieze Official on Facebook. 

^{Main image: Adham Faramawy, By earth, sea and air we came, 2021, video, 18 minutes. Courtesy of the artist and Niru Ratnam Gallery}