The Beckett Foundation, in partnership with Copenhagen Contemporary, honours Jane Jin Kaisen as the winner of the Beckett Prize 2023

3.11.2023

(Copenhagen/cc) - The Beckett Foundation and Copenhagen Contemporary (CC) are proud to announce the winner of the Beckett Prize 2023: the Danish artist Jane Jin Kaisen. The award is a recognition of her ground-breaking artistic work which, through filmic works, navigates the intersection between lived experience, embodied knowledge and political narratives. The prize comes with a grant of DKK 250,000.

In collaboration with CC, the Beckett Prize is given annually to a visual artist working in Denmark who has made an original contribution to the arts. An essential criterion for the award is that the artist, over a significant number of years, has developed a personal artistic language distinguished by qualities such as humanism, conceptual precision, skilled execution and immersion in materials and effects.

CC's director Marie Laurberg states on behalf of the jury:
"Over the course of two decades Jane Jin Kaisen has created a unique oeuvre characterized by her visually stunning films that combine storytelling, spirituality and music. Her work is imbued with a strong intersectional and feminist voice, continuously advocating freedom.
In her work she builds bridges between historical narratives from her native South Korea and experiences of transnational adoption and racialization. The great appeal of Jin Kaisen's work is her sensitive approach to highly complex issues, which speaks to her strong artistic integrity. Jane Jin Kaisen has been unanimously chosen by the jury, and we are proud to award her the Beckett Prize 2023."

About Jane Jin Kaisen
Jane Jin Kaisen (born in 1980 on Jeju Island, South Korea, living in Copenhagen) is a visual artist, filmmaker and professor at the School of Media Arts, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

Jin Kaisen's artistic practice spans video installation, experimental film, photography, performance and text. Her work is rooted in extensive interdisciplinary research, long-term collaborations and engagement with minority communities. She is known for her visually striking, poetic and polyphonic works that connect the past and the present. Addressing issues of memory, migration, borders and translation, she activates the field where lived experience and embodied knowledge intersect with larger political narratives.

Through year-long projects Jin Kaisen has addressed topics such as transnational adoption, gender and militarism, the Korean War, the Jeju Massacre (1947-54) and the effects of the Cold War.
Moreover, Jin Kaisen repeatedly focuses on nature and oceanic cultures, cosmologies, feminist retellings of myths, and an engagement in ritual and spiritual practices.

She operates at the threshold between media and forms, disciplines and sensibilities, and her works negotiate the means of representation, resistance and recognition. In so doing, she outlines the contours of possible alternative kinships and sites of collective manifestation.

Beckett Prize jury
As part of the jury for this year's Beckett Prize, CC and the Beckett Foundation have appointed a number of prominent curators from leading European institutions who, for the next four years, will help select the prize winners: Cliff Lauson (Director of Exhibitions, Somerset House, London), María Berríos (Head of Curatorial Programmes and Research at MACBA, Barcelona), Hendrik Folkerts (Curator of International Art and Head of Exhibitions, Moderna Museet, Stockholm) and Marie Laurberg (Director, Copenhagen Contemporary).

With its choice of jury, CC and the Beckett Foundation want to raise international awareness of contemporary Danish art and entrench the position of the Beckett Prize in a strong professional network. The honorary award will help to showcase and promote the Danish art scene's great talents internationally.

Last year the Beckett Prize was awarded for the first time; the winner was Cathrine Raben Davidsen whose compelling and dreamy paintings form a unique and personal artistic universe, exploring life, death, transformation and metamorphosis.

About Copenhagen Contemporary
Copenhagen Contemporary (CC), Copenhagen’s international art center, shows installation art by contemporary art-world stars and emerging talents alike. With 7000 m2 of bright industrial space, located in the former welding hall of B&W shipyards and refurbished by architect Dorte Mandrup, CC amply accommodates the technically demanding formats and massive scales employed by many artists today. From sprawling, immersive installations to performance art and monumental video works, this is art you can walk through and experience with your whole body. Read more here: https://copenhagencontemporary.org/en/

About the Beckett Foundation
The Beckett Foundation was founded on 26 June 1989 by a donation from the painter Paul Beckett and his wife, Birte Beckett. The foundation is a charitable non-profit organization awarding grants to art and culture, medicine and nature conservation. The Beckett Prize is awarded in memory of the painter Paul Beckett (1922-1994) and established on the centenary of his birth. Read more here: https://beckett-fonden.dk/

Copenhagen Contemporary is in 2023 supported by:
Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond, Augustinusfonden, Knud Højgaards Fond, Beckett-Fonden, Bikubenfonden, Det Obelske, Familiefond, A.P. Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til almene Formaal, 15. Juni Fonden, Kulturministeriet, Københavns Kommune, Statens Kunstfond, Carlsbergs Mindelegat for Brygger J.C. Jacobsen, Frame Finland, Goethe-Institut Dänemark, U.S. Embassy in Denmark, William Demant Fonden, Konsul George Jorck og Hustru Emma Jorck’s Fond, Koda Kultur, Politiken Fonden, Foreningen Roskilde Festival, Refshaleøens Ejendomsselskab, Fredericia Furniture, Dinesen, Carhartt WIP