Tekla Aslanishvili selected for Han Nefkens Foundation’s Eurasia – Moving Image Co-Commission 2026
Tekla Aslanishvili was selected for her compelling and ambitious proposal, distinguished by its intellectual rigour and contemporary relevance. This 2026 commission represents a significant milestone in her career, further consolidating her position as one of the most vital voices in contemporary moving image practice. The Han Nefkens Foundation is especially delighted with her selection, which follows her earlier recognition as the recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Museu Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Grant 2020. This continued collaboration not only underscores the Foundation’s sustained commitment to her practice, but also highlights the remarkable artistic progression she has achieved over the past six years.
The jury expressed strong admiration for the project:
“…we were unanimously impressed by Tekla Aslanishvili’s proposal. The project’s deep collaborative research across Eurasia was considered particularly valuable, and very much aligned with the objectives of the Eurasia Commission. Her proposal thoughtfully engages with histories of internationalism, while actively imagining future forms of progressive internationalism in the region.”
“Considering its contemporary relevance and scope, along with Aslanishvili’s undeniable talent, we are sure this project will make for a remarkable art project. The jury is also confident that this project represents an important step forward in Aslanishvili’s practice.”
Each Eurasia Moving Image Co-Commission recipient receives a sum of $120,000 US dollars for the production of a screen-based video artwork, for which they will have up to 18 months to produce. This new work will then be exhibited with each partner institution who will also receive one edition of the produced artwork.
The Eurasia Co-Commission is directed to artists or collectives, inhabitants of Eurasia, with a solid professional trajectory, but who have not had the opportunity to exhibit extensively. The production grant should serve as an important source of support and boost in the artist’s career.
Aslanishvili’s practice is widely recognised for its rigorous research methodology and nuanced exploration of geopolitics, infrastructures and transnational histories. With this new commission, she will further expand her inquiry through an extensive collaborative research process spanning multiple contexts across Eurasia.
Tekla Aslanishvili commented:
“The Eurasia Moving Image Co-Commission, with its multifaceted support structure, enables a reflexive turn in my practice. For the past decade, I have used film to excavate the material and social histories surrounding energy and transit infrastructures. This project turns to cinema’s own apparatus as a primary infrastructure for constructing real spaces and relations.”
“The film investigates Soviet cinematic language as a sense-making tool of socialist modernity—the means through which a political project was imagined, staged and made perceptible. At the same time, it attends to experimental internationalist visions that outlasted that project: attempts at cultural amalgamation across Eurasia and beyond, and the cinematic transfer of revolutionary energies, solidarities, distortions and violences across borders.”
“The trust and support of the Han Nefkens Foundation and its partners arrive at a pivotal moment in my career, and I am deeply grateful. This commission encourages me to expand the scope of my cinematic experimentation and to deepen a collective inquiry into how new forms of sociality might be mediated, represented and produced through moving-image practice. ”
Focus on Eurasia
The Han Nefkens shares with M HKA its focus on Eurasia. The Eurasia Moving Image Co-Commission brings together key international museum partners who seek to invite an eminent artist-inhabitant of Eurasia who reflects on the landmass as a cultural and conceptual space.
The concept of Eurasia evokes myriad different ideas across geographical, ideological, cultural and artistic paradigms. Housing almost three quarters of the world’s population, the Eurasian supercontinent is also home to a great plurality of cultures. More than a region, Eurasia is understood as being a shared cultural and conceptual space and has been a source of reflection for many artists both historical and contemporary: we see it being explored by many artists employing progressive international perspectives through their unique artistic lenses.
The Eurasia Moving Image Co-Commission is currently one of four Han Nefkens Foundation Co-Commissions, each one uniting art institutions at the highest level across continents and offering a way in which participating museums can extend their collections through the co-production projects, as the newly produced work enters each partner museum’s collection.
The 2026 Eurasia Moving Image Co-Commission jury, chaired by Han Nefkens, consisted:
Kim Sunjung, Director, Art Sonje Center, Seoul; Heehyun Cho, Head of Exhibitions, Art Sonje Center; Kiira Miesmaa, Director, KIASMA; Saara Hacklin, Chief Curator, KIASMA; Nav Haq, Associate Director and Head of Exhibitions, M HKA, Antwerp; Ekaterina Vorontsova, Researcher, M HKA; Hsiangling Lai, Director, New Taipei City Art Museum; Anita Huang, Director of the Exhibition Dept., New Taipei City Art Museum, in the presence of Hilde Teerlinck: Director of the Han Nefkens Foundation and Alessandra Biscaro: Coordinator of the Han Nefkens Foundation.
The scouts for the 2026 Eurasia Moving Image Co-Commission were:
The Foundation and the institutions are grateful to the invaluable support of an international panel of experts, including Merve Elveren (Turkey); Shih-yu Hsu (Taiwan); Hyo Gyung Jeon (South Korea); Yung Ma (Hong Kong); Hilde Methi (Norway); Furqat Palvan-Zade (Uzbekistan); Foteini Salvaridi (Greece); Noam Segal (United States), who nominated an initial long-list of 16 candidates.
The finalists for the 2026 Eurasia Moving Image Co-Commission were:
Tekla Aslanishvili (1988, Tbilisi) and Yi-Fan Li (1989, Taiwan).
On Tekla Aslanishvili
Tekla Aslanishvili (b. Georgia, 1988) is an artist, filmmaker and researcher based between Berlin, Tbilisi and Vienna. Her collaborative, interdisciplinary practice examines how infrastructures operate—across temporally and politically distant contexts—as technologies of cultural and scientific knowledge production, nation-building, and resistance.
She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts and an ifk Fellow in Vienna. Her work has been presented internationally at institutions and exhibitions including M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp; Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden; Berlinische Galerie; the Tbilisi Architecture Biennial 2024; SculptureCenter, New York; the Taipei Biennial 2023; WIELS, Brussels; Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; LOOP Festival – Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona; Neue Berliner Kunstverein; the 14th Baltic Triennial.
She was a Graduate School Fellow at UdK Berlin (2024–2025), a Digital Earth Fellow (2019), an Ars Viva nominee (2021), and a recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Award (2020).
The Han Nefkens Foundation
The Han Nefkens Foundation is a private, non-profit organisation set up in Barcelona in 2009 by Dutch writer and patron, Han Nefkens. It focuses solely on the production of video art, with the aim of connecting people through art across the world. The Foundation develops its activities thanks to a large worldwide network of experts who combine their knowledge and experience as scouts, advisors and jury members when selecting the artists who will benefit from its support. Positioned as a platform for emerging to mid-career video artists to advance their careers, its main activity is to commission new works through grants and commissions on an international level that culminate in exhibitions at partner institutions.
