The Vera Record Middle for Art and Politics has declared Australian Aboriginal artist collective proppaNOW as the receiver of the 2022–24 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice. The Meanjin/Brisbane–based collective was picked for the honor, which is attended by a $25,000 cash prize, for its 2021 exhibition “OCCURRENT AFFAIR,” at the University of Queensland Art Museum, showcasing new and current works by its users and addressing “current sociopolitical, financial and environmental troubles while celebrating the strength, resilience and continuity of Aboriginal society,” according to a curatorial statement.
Voting unanimously in their favor was an award jury chaired by Simone Leigh, who received the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Biennale, and furthermore comprising Carin Kuoni, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Wanda Nanibush, and Rasha Salti. In a joint assertion, the jury users praised proppaNOW for its efforts in pushing back in opposition to “the invisibility of city Aboriginal modern day artwork,” noting that it has “broken with expectations of what is correct (‘proppa’) in Aboriginal art produced a new sovereign area for Very first Nations artists internationally outside colonial stereotypes, wishes for authenticity, and capitalist capitulations and opened new political imaginaries.”
The Jane Lombard Prize, which honors outstanding achievements in art and politics and acknowledges artworks that progress social justice, took as its theme this year “Correction.” proppaNOW, which was founded in 2003 to provide attention to urban Aboriginal artists and to beat the common anticipations put on these artists by colonizers, was one of 5 finalists for the prize, along with Colectivo Cherani for Cherán Cultural Centre Khalil Rabah for The Palestinian Museum of Natural Heritage and Humankind KUNCI Research Forum & Collective for University of Poor Education and learning and The Africa Cluster of the Yet another Roadmap University. The collective’s undertaking will be exhibited at New York’s Vera List Middle subsequent fall.