Tiziano Cruz won the 10th ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art

Tiziano Cruz was revealed as the 10th winner of the prestigious prize during the ANTI Prize Party in Kuopio, Finland.

The 2023 shortlist comprised of four celebrated artists from across the globe: Tiziano Cruz (Argentina), Autumn Knight (United States), Jota Mombaça (Brazil) and Joshua Serafin (Philippines/Belgium).

The prize, at €30,000, is one of the richest in the arts. ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art is the world’s only international prize dedicated to live art. The prize is funded by the Saastamoinen Foundation.

The phenomenal live works of the shortlisted artists were presented in the Shortlist LIVE! Programme during the 2023 ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival.

In 2023, artist Cassils (Canada/United States) worked as the Chair of Jury, and the other members of the jury were curators Giovanna Esposito Yussif and Adelaide Bannerman. Bannerman participated in the jury’s work remotely. Find the chair of the jury Cassils’ speech “Recommendations and Assesment: Reclaiming ‘the Prize’ as ‘Recognition’ ” here.

The jury considered the nominees’ work from the past few years through documentation – and experienced their recent works in the Shortlist LIVE! Programme together with other audiences.

The Jury states of the Winner

“Tiziano’s work accounts to the consequences of the colonial violence in Argentina and its consequences that currently affect indigenous, racialized and marginalised  communities through different degrees of invisibilization, discrimination, epistemicides and  deterritorializations that at large signal a form of governance that favors disappearance of difference toward whiteness as norm – an operation that takes place, in different degrees, through the Americas and beyond.

Tiziano’s work also gives testimony to the resilience of peoples who through micropolitics resist these forms of continuous subjugation, aiming to make worlds where multiplicities can walk in dignity. In Soliloquio (me desperté y golpeé mi cabeza contra la pared), Tizianos’ powerful and poetic oration captures a personal statement to reflect on the local and regional relation and the cultural traditions of his ancestry. He creates a  collective and communal work that is not constructed for consumption but for the empowerment and recognition of communities that have been historically disenfranchised. 

“The spectacle is not mine” declares Tiziano. These words are emblematic of a practice that works towards dissolving hierarchy and dominance in service of forming carefully crafted performances which simultaneously archive and revive collective cultural memory. Tiziano’s work accounts to the consequences of the colonial violence in Argentina and its consequences that currently affect indigenous, racialized and marginalised communities through different degrees of invisibilization, discrimination, epistemicides and  deterritorializations that at large signal a form of governance that favors disappearance of difference toward whiteness as norm – an operation that takes place, in different degrees, through the Americas and beyond.

Tiziano’s work also gives testimony to the resilience of peoples who through micropolitics resist these forms of continuous subjugation, aiming to make worlds where multiplicities can walk in dignity. In Soliloquio (me desperté y golpeé mi cabeza contra la pared), Tizianos’ powerful and poetic oration captures a personal statement to reflect on the local and regional relation and the cultural traditions of his ancestry. He creates a  collective and communal work that is not constructed for consumption but for the empowerment and recognition of communities that have been historical disenfranchised  “The spectacle is not mine” declares Tiziano. These words are emblematic of a practice that works towards dissolving hierarchy and dominance in service of forming carefully crafted performances which simultaneously archive and revive collective cultural memory.”