Waiting With
{Sonic Support}
Visitor Information
The Frieze Artist Award 2022 is commissioned and produced by Forma and Frieze with the support of Arts Council England.
12-16 October 2022
The Regent's Park
This year's commission is located right beside the entrance to Frieze London. The second sculpture sits inside the fair.
Visit Frieze London
Frieze Artist Award 2022
Abbas Zahedi
12-16 October 2022
Frieze named Abbas Zahedi as the winner of the 2022 Frieze Artist Award, realized in partnership with Forma for the fourth consecutive year. Established in 2013, the award provides an emerging artist with the platform to debut an ambitious new commission on the occasion of Frieze London. Previous recipients of the Frieze Artist Award include Himali Singh Soin (2019), Alberta Whittle (2020) and Sung Tieu (2021).
Abbas Zahedi’s new work Waiting With {Sonic Support} will play host to an Open Mic each day of the fair.Located beside the entrance to Frieze in Regent’s Park, Abbas’ structure will be activated by performances between 12-16 October 2022, 3-4.30pm.
Tune in online
Waiting With {Sonic Support}, 2022, is a prototype for a new form of civic infrastructure; conflating multiple sites: a bus stop - more generally, a public waiting area - a DIY bandstand, and a public support space. Responding to the particularities of Frieze London, Abbas Zahedi’s site-sensitive installation activates the fair’s threshold, to establish a speculative transport system for utopian daydreaming between its inside and outside.
Developed from Jean-Paul Sartre’s notion of bus stops as places to ‘achieve practical and theoretical participation in common being’, one first encounters Waiting With {Sonic Support} whilst approaching Frieze London. Echoing the form of a Central Asian Soviet-Era bus stop, Abbas’ co-designed waiting zone is a site of ensemble; a place where one can depart from the isolated individuality of our contemporary age - Sartre’s ‘plurality of isolations’ - by convening with others in a common interconnected space.
During Frieze London, this temporary structure will serve as a ‘metatopian’ performative environment, that hosts a number of open mic activations. Selected through an open submissions process, these open mics not only extend a gesture of conviviality to other artists and performers but allude to Abbas’ early creative practice as an emcee, spoken-word poet and community organiser. Embracing the legacies of DIY and pirate radio, each of these open-mic ensembles will be broadcast live into the heart of the Frieze London tent. Here, an indoor version of the installation will allow those inside to tune into the active space outside.
Zahedi’s winning commission was selected by a jury composed of leading industry figures including Eva Langret (Director of Frieze London), Isabella Maidment (Curator, Contemporary British Art, Tate), Maitreyi Maheshwari (Head of Programme , FACT Liverpool), Chris Rawcliffe (Artistic Director, Forma), and Sung Tieu (Artist and 2021 Frieze Artist Award Winner).
Artist Biography
Abbas Zahedi has a long interest in borders, thresholds and how things can move within systems or networks. Titled Waiting With {Sonic Support}, this new work builds upon this interest, and can be seen as a conflation of two particular sites: a public waiting area and a public support space. Situated adjacent to the entrance of the fair, the installation will consist of a co-designed* wooden structure, echoing the architectural forms of modernist bus stops. Over the course of the fair, this structure will host a series of live activations each of which will be broadcast, via a DIY radio, both online and into the heart of the fair. In this way, Zahedi's installation furthers his research into the potential of sound to hold and create space.
Open Mic Programme
Wednesday 12 October
Agnieszka Szczotka, Amir Hossein Kamaal Williams, Shepherd Manyika,Maria Mahfooz and Hugo Hutchins, Nikki Meftah, Ronnie Pope, Salma the Poet
Thursday 13 October
Amina Jama Avril Corroon, Daria Blum, James Bragg, Phoebe Wagner and Sally Barton, Toraigh Watson, Verity Birt, Yulin Huang
Friday 14 October
Daniel C. Blight, Ed Taylor, Francesca Augustine, Gbolade Oludare, Ingrid Berthon-Moine, J Frank, Khadeeja Hamid
Saturday 15 October
Gabrielle Brooks, Holly Slingsby, Jody DeSchutter, Kangudi Loka, L U C I N E, Luke Jaime Sutherland, Shirin Fathi, Soohyun Choi
Sunday 16 October
Abdollah Nafisi, assia ghendir, Bill Daggs, Carl Gent, Clémentine Bedos Harry Cross, John Costi, leon clowes, Mengting Zhuo
Encore - MP3 Submissions
Amir Hanjani, Andrew Pierre Hart, Ehsan Fathi, John Anthony, Lea Luka Sikau, Maite de Orbe, Marie-Louise Jones, Mohammed Elshimi, Patrick Cosgrove, Ramses Alexandre, Richard Chaffer, Richmond Cloverfield, Sam Harris, Scott Jones, Shepherd Manyika, Susie Green, Tot Taylor
Press
— Frieze Art Fair in London (Monopol, 15 October 2022)
— Everything Worth Seeing At Frieze London 2022 (Vogue, 12 October 2022)
— Ahead Of Frieze London 2022, Eva Langret Shares Her Top 5 Unmissable Moments (Forbes, 11 October 2022)
— Artist Abbas Zahedi: ‘I hijack galleries as spaces to grieve’ (Financial Times, 7 October 2022)
— Abbas Zahedi Invites Us To Play the Waiting Game (Frieze, 7 October 2022)
— Frieze London + Frieze Masters reveal ambitious curated programme (FAD Magazine, 16 September 2022)
— Abbas Zahedi Wins Frieze Artist Award 2022 (ArtAsiaPacific, 8 July 2022)
— Emerging British artist Abbas Zahedi wins 2022 Frieze Artist Award (The Art Newspaper, 6 July 2022)
— Abbas Zahedi Wins Frieze Artist Award 2022 (ArtForum, 6 July 2022)
— Abbas Zahedi: Winner of the Frieze Artist Award 2022 (Frieze, 6 July 2022)
—
Image Credit: Abbas Zahedi, Waiting With {Sonic Support}, 2022. Open Mic performances at Frieze London 12-16 October 2022. © Abbas Zahedi. Co-commissioned by Frieze and Forma for the Frieze Artist Award 2022. Courtesy Frieze, Forma and Belmacz. Photo: Forma