Ben Rivers: winner of the Eye Art & Film Prize 2016

Ben Rivers has been announced as the second winner of the Eye Art & Film Prize 2016 at a ceremony in Amsterdam’s Eye Filmmuseum on 7 April 2016. He received the £25,000 GBP prize to fund the making of new work.

In 2018, Eye will present an exhibition of the first three Prize winners’ work in Amsterdam.

The Eye Prize, created by the Dutch film museum Eye and the Paddy & Joan Leigh Fermor Arts Fund, aims to support and promote an artist or filmmaker whose work has contributed to the developments in the field between art and film in a remarkable manner.

London-based Ben Rivers was chosen from a shortlist presented to the Jury by an international Advisory Board. The selection was made on the basis of the recipient’s body of work – Rivers is developing a significant oeuvre, contributing in an outstanding manner to the developments in the field between visual arts and film.

Ben Rivers’ work as an artist/filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction – often following and filming people who have in some way separated themselves from society. The raw film footage provides Rivers with a starting point for creating oblique narratives imagining alternative existences in marginal worlds.