Goldsmiths alumnus Evan Boehm shortlisted for first Tate IK creative digital media award with £10,000 prize

Evan Boehm. Pic: The Tate

Evan Boehm. Pic: The Tate

Goldsmiths alumnus and interactive animation director Evan Boehm has been shortlisted for the first Tate IK Prize, a new award celebrating creativity in digital art.

Participants have submitted ideas for digital projects that could be shown in Tate Britain. The winner will receive a £10,000 prize and a £60,000 budget to product their work.

Boehm’s idea, an interactive film called ‘Through the Eyes of an Eight-Year-Old’, follows a mother and son visiting the entire collection of the Tate Britain.

Boehm said: “I was ecstatic at the news though also surprised because of the high standard of the competition.”  The artist believes the judges liked his project because: “it addressed a different audience whereas most proposals assume an adult engagement.”

He added: “My piece isn’t aimed at academia or professionals from the creative industries. It has family at the centre of it.”

Evan Boehm's IK Prize winning work. Pic: Felix Massie

Evan Boehm’s IK Prize winning work. Pic: Felix Massie

The other three works on the shortlist taken from a pool of 51 entries are ‘thecommonpeople’ by Adam Clarke, ‘Storythings’ by Matt Locke and Kim Plowright and ‘The Workers’ by Tommaso Lanza, Ross Cairnsand and David Di Luca.

Boehm, a 32-year-old from San Francisco, is currently a director at London-based animation studio Nexus Productions. After witnessing the dotcom crash in 2000, he saw the writing was on the wall and decided to switch degrees and move to the United Kingdom. Boehm changed his career and later enrolled on an MA in Design and Critical Practice at Goldsmiths.

Nicholas Serota, Director of Tate, commenting on the newly-established award, said: “The digital space is one of the most dynamic and fast-changing areas of contemporary life, a place where new and innovative ideas can be developed. We believe that this is the right moment to establish a prize which recognises outstanding, creative achievement in the digital field.”

The prize was created in memory of philanthropist Irene Kreitman. The winner will be announced on February 6.

 

 

 

 

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