• Winner to be announced on June 27, 2018, at the V&A, London

The Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), in partnership with Art Jameel, has announced the shortlist for the Jameel Prize 5, the international prize for contemporary artists and designers inspired by Islamic tradition. Eight finalists have been shortlisted for the £25,000 (AED 128,000) prize, which is awarded every two years. They are: Kamrooz Aram, Hayv Kahraman, Hala Kaiksow, Mehdi Moutashar, naqsh collective, Younes Rahmoun, Wardha Shabbir and Marina Tabassum.

The fifth edition of the Jameel Prize will debut at the V&A, London, where the winner will be announced on June 27, 2018. The accompanying exhibition, showcasing the work of the eight shortlisted artists and designers, will run from June 28 until November 25, 2018. The exhibition will then tour to museums globally, including the Jameel Arts Centre, in Dubai, in 2019.

The shortlist is diverse and for the first time features an architect. Other practices represented in the shortlist include painting andfashion design, while sources of inspiration range from embroidered shawls to Arabic calligraphy. Multi-media installations evoke the symbolism of light and challenge Western approaches to art history. This great variety reflects the richness of Islamic tradition as a source for contemporary creativity, highlighting the influence of our shared cultural past on contemporary artistic views of the world.

The panel of judges, chaired by V&A Director, Tristram Hunt, selected the shortlist. He said: “The Jameel Prize continues to gain momentum. This – the fifth edition of the Prize – has attracted nearly 400 nominations from around the world, and for the first time, the shortlist features work from Bangladesh, Bahrain and Jordan. This year’s outstanding shortlist displays real diversity; the judges found beauty, spirituality, complexity, humour and humanity. The V&A is delighted to continue its partnership with Art Jameel in recognition of the extraordinary contemporary artists and designers inspired by Islamic tradition.”

One of the judges, Salah Hassan, Professor and Director, Institute for Comparative Modernities at Cornell University, New York, and a regular contributor to Sharjah Art Foundation’s exhibition programme, commented: “The shortlisted artists for Jameel Prize 5 represent an array of amazing talents, who are engaged in diverse practices in art and design, that are conceptually-oriented and in sync with latest discourse of contemporary art, yet rooted in discrete ways to their own cultures and multiple identities. Jameel Prize 5 expands our horizons of what modernity and contemporaneity truly mean, and enriches our understanding of a truly globalised art world beyond its current confines.”

The judging panel also includes the independent design historian Tanya Harrod; November Paynter, who is Director of Programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto; and the artist Ghulam Mohammad, who was the winner of Jameel Prize 4.