DEEP FOREST ART LAND PRIZE 2022

Australian Eugenia Lim is crowned winner of the Deep Forest Art Land 2022 award by this year's jury and co-founder of Deep Forest Art Land, Søren Taaning. The prize triggers the opportunity to create a site-specific work for the sculpture park in Kibæk in 2023. Eugenia Lim wins with the works Sleep no more (Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii Taurine edition) (2021-2022), Olfactory (2021) and Diurnal nocturnal (2021).

"To know that my work-created in the depths of Melbourne, Australia's long lockdown-resonates at a global level, 16,000km away, is a sublime feeling. A Deep Forest feeling! I am honoured to have received the prize and look forward to visiting West Jutland."

- Eugenia Lim

ABOUT EUGENIA LIM
(translated from the artist's own description)

I am an Australian artist of Chinese-Singaporean descent who works in video, photography, performance and physical practice to explore how national identities divide and unite our interdependent world. An ongoing part of my practice considers labour, collectivity, technology, ethics and art and capital as strange bedfellows. I often appear myself in my work, inventing personas that explore the tensions of the individual in society - alienation and belonging in a globalized world.

www.eugenialim.com
@eugeniuslim

ABOUT Sleep no more (Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii Taurine edition) (2021-2022)
(translated from the artist's own description)

Cast from aluminium, Red Bull cans and ritalin (a prescription drug used to treat ADHD and sleep problems), Sleep No More seeks to elevate a migratory bird to the level of a contemporary spiritual icon. Each northern spring and fall, tens of thousands of Gambel's white-crowned sparrows migrate 4,000 miles between Alaska and California, flying by night and feeding by day for up to seven days at a time without sleeping. The sparrow (and the simultaneous state of always being on and never not being - like having a digital device on 'sleep mode') is an emblem of this work.

Cast aluminum, melted and unmelted Red Bull cans, ritalin. 32x22x30cm.

ABOUT Olfactory (2021)
(translated from the artist's own description)

'Olfactory' is one of a series of sculptural works by Eugenia Lim that address the financialization of time. Sleep is where rest and healing occur - but what if it is disrupted or potentially obliterated? From the migratory insomnia of Gamble's white-crowned sparrow to Amazon's world ecology, 24/7 is a series of works that examine sleep the last frontier of late capitalism. In 'Olfactory', synthetic uppers and downers replace essential oils to infinitely augment and recalibrate the atmosphere and circadian rhythms of the gallery and its occupants.

Plastic, Red Bull, water, sleeping pills from Amazon. 42x40x9cm.

ABOUT Diurnal nocturnal (2021)
(translated from the artist's own description)

'Diurnal Nocturnal' is one of a series of sculptural works by Eugenia Lim that address the financialization of time. Sleep is where rest and healing occur - but what if it is disrupted or potentially obliterated? From the migratory insomnia of Gamble's white-crowned sparrow to Amazon's world ecology, 24/7 is a series of works that examine sleep the last frontier of late capitalism. In 'Diurnal nocturnal', two ready-made candles bought on Amazon project a Venn diagram of time - the 'always on/never off' space we know from the 24/7 of our globalised, digitally connected capitalist world.

LED lights purchased on Amazon.com. Dimensions vary.

ARTIST'S CREDIT
(translated from the artist's own description)

This project is assisted by the Australian Government through Australia Council, the country's arts funding and advisory body.

This work was conceived and created across the unceded territory of the eastern part of the Kulin nation, Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Boon Wurrung. The artist acknowledges the sovereign, living culture of the Indigenous Peoples that connects community, landscape, water and sky here and far beyond this place. This has always been, and will always be, Aboriginal land.

Artist: Eugenia Lim
Cultural production: Julien Comer-Klein and Mark Friedlander
Metal fabrication and installation: Dale Holden
3D modelling and printing: Tony Yu and Melissa Iraheta (NExTlab)
Anonymous workers: Amazon global logistics and supply chain workers, global postal and freight couriers for various companies including UPS and Australia Post, Chinese factory workers
Thanks to: Samantha Barrow, Darcy Zelenko, Quino Holland, Mark Shorter, Amy Coombs and Hoda Afshar.

JUSTIFICATION FOR THE CHOICE OF EUGENIA GLUE
"Together with the jury we have chosen Eugenia Lim, an Australian artist of Chinese/Singaporean origin. Eugenia works across video, photography, performance and sculpture. At first glance at the submitted works, you might not think of her practice in a forest. But given the original way she deals and relates to the world, people and situations, we are quite sure that she will understand how to use the very special context we and nature can offer."

- Søren Taaning, on behalf of Deep Forest Artland and this year's jury