CIRCA PRIZE: Curators’ Circle In Conversation

Now in its fifth year, CIRCA PRIZE invites emerging and mid-career artists everywhere to submit a 2.5-minute video work in response to the CIRCA 20:25 Manifesto, REFUGIA. Thirty finalists will be selected by this year’s Curators’ Circle – selected annually by CIRCA to uphold the integrity of the prize – to have their work screened throughout September on London’s iconic Piccadilly Lights and broadcast across the CIRCA global platform. This year’s Circle includes Amal Khalaf, Ben Broome, and Samantha Ozer — each representing curatorial practices that reflect and support the wider creative community. 

Watch a live conversation of the Curators’ Circle moderated by Vittoria de Franchis as they explore how artists can approach this year’s open call.

[Vittoria de Franchis]:  Here we are, really happy that we made it on this call. And it’s always nice when you speak via email to, you know, have a chance to connect, even if we’re all in different parts of the world. So I’ll just introduce briefly, I’m Vittoria, I’m part of the Curatorial team of CIRCA, and I’m today, joined by Amal Khalaf, Ben Broome and Samantha Ozer, who are part of the Curators’ Circle of CIRCA PRIZE 2025. and have been invited by CIRCA because they are three amazing curators, especially because of their intermedia practice. Intermedia curatorial practice. And their different takes on public space as the site for cultural action, which is something that is also very embedded in CIRCA And with the Curators’ Circle, we will review the applications, the shortlisted applications, and choose the 30 finalists whose work will be screened on Piccadilly Lights in September. And one of the finalists will, of course, be the winner of CIRCA PRIZE 2025. So the idea of the Curator’s Circle is also really to create a diversity, diversity of approaches in the selection, of the finalists. So I will let’s just each one of the curators to briefly introduce themselves. 

[Amal Khalaf]: Okay. So I’m Amal. Hi, everybody. I’m a curator and an artist, and I’m currently curating the Sharjah Biennial. And I’m here in Thailand, curating the forthcoming Ghost, which is a moving image and performance festival that will open later this year. As a curator, I’m really interested in commissioning and working with artists, who work in collaboration with others long term. So I support a lot of collaborative projects as well as commissioning a lot of artists’ moving image.

[VdF]: Thank you Amal. Ben?

[Ben Broome]: Hi I’m Ben, I’m a curator, writer, artist,  based in London. I’m an independent curator, which means that my practice is often iterative and global and, nomadic. I’m particularly interested in artists who make work existing outside of, I suppose, institutional structures and gallery structures. I love to support artists who make, “difficult work”. Work that is, it’s challenging to conceive, challenging to show, challenging to sell, challenging to store. I think these are the artists that need support, now. So that is my focus.

[VdF]: Thank you. Ben. And Sam?

[Sam Ozer]: I kind of wish you guys could hear it, but it’s funny if you can’t. I’m Sam Ozer, and I’m, I guess, the only one who’s not also an artist. I’m a curator and a writer. And I founded a nonprofit called SONO, which is dedicated to time based work. So focus on video, installation, sound installation, performance, dance, kind of intersections, a lot of those things as well. And I run a arts festival across museums in Mexico City and Puebla every spring. And towards those projects I work with other institutions directly. So like Mudam, for example, which was, co-commissioned with something that premiered in Mexico. And in addition to museums, we also do things in public space. So there’s been a few projects,

in Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, which is one of the main parks,  actually a beautiful dance piece for the Mexican choreographer and Rockefeller Center in New York. So we’re trying to connect to institutional spaces. I mean, I think both of those spaces are public parks and, main square. So institutional spaces, but a different type of, I guess, institution and one within the walls. And then, I guess creatively working with artists that are working across time based work. So big video person for purposes of the CIRCA PRIZE and things.

[VdF]: Thank you. I mean, as you see, it’s a very big challenge the Curators’ Circle this year, such incredible curators. So let’s dive a bit further into the CIRCA PRIZE, which, each year has at its theme,  the manifesto of CIRCA which is the manifesto that then leads all our commissions and projects throughout the year. This year is, REFUGIA. You can read the full Manifesto on our website. But just to give, like, a very brief, context to it. Refugia is, of course, a reflection on the times that we live in. From different perspectives, also human and non-human and an invitation to take this moment in which we are pushed and and called to, you know, stay together, stick together, create shelters. To see these shelters not only as sites to retreat, but also to restart from and reimagine. So we asked previously the curators what were their take on REFUGIA. But I would kindly ask you to, say it again. For everyone in the Instagram live.

[AK]: Okay, should I kick off again? Yes.

[VdF]: Yes.

[AK]: I guess I’ve been thinking a lot about and for a while now, how we, as artists and art workers, are able to be part of processing a lot of the violence that is around us right now. And thinking a lot around ecological collapse, which is one of the kind of prompts that, CIRCA you’ve you’ve shared with us as like a point of focus. And I’ve been thinking and working a lot with collectives, a lot of the artists, projects that I’ve been commissioning will involve artists that work with, communities and struggle people on the sharp end of crises. And I’ve been thinking about the possibility that, artmaking can have, and artworks and, artistic practices can have in creating spaces for holding a processing of grief and loss. I don’t feel that are many spaces in public where people can really do this anymore. And I’m hugely inspired by my grandma, who is a lamentor. And I’ve been really thinking about this idea of how artists are doing this work, themselves in terms of holding,  a lot of emotion, a lot of loss, and also creating, you know, space for decomposing as well as seeding new ideas for how we can live in the world otherwise. So REFUGIA, for me, feels like, 

a kind of container thinking about artmaking as a container to do this work.

[VdF]: Thank you Amal.

[BB]: I was thinking about REFUGIA within the context of ecology. In ecology, it’s defined as where flora and fauna can survive despite harsh conditions. I think survival as an artist is a really important word. Artists are  fighting to survive,  it’s not so easy. Especially in big cities. Space to, to make resources. Few and far between. And I think, if we think of REFUGIA as, I suppose a utopian dream of the future where, where it is possible for artists to not only survive, but to thrive. I think this requires, as Amal was saying, collectivity. I think, as a unit, as a collective. We are stronger. And collectively, we can enact meaningful social change, across our culture, politics, so thinking about REFUGIA is really also thinking about, about the collective and how we can come together to enact change.

[SO]: I think when I also started thinking about this, I was looking I mean, I basically was like looked at the definition ecologically based on what you said Ben, in this idea of surviving within harsh conditions and what I found fascinating of like I know my beginning of the dive into this was, through moments of like ecological collapse across like the last I mean, thousands of years. It’s always spaces of extreme biodiversity and genetic variation that have survived. And then they’ve looked kind of like different scientists are connecting across continents and places that are very geographically distinct, actually finding genetic variations that are similar to the species that did survive. And I think as a curator, I’m someone that I, I physically travel quite a lot and have the privilege to do that. And it’s interesting that usually, I mean, the way I curate, I don’t usually do thematic shows, but there’s themes that emerge, and I think it’s for this similar reason. If we want to compare kind of this idea of diversity, and it’s quite geographically distinct, but when people are approaching similar ideas and sometimes in the same way or slightly different version, but I, you know, I see a lot of artists dealing with like death in the last years, which is not surprising with everything around us. But people are looking at the idea of ghosts in terms of this, and there’s ghosts that are different examples in different cities that people are now working. But then I’m like, this is interesting that if we’re thinking about this idea of diversity of the artists in different places, but the same words are coming up and maybe the same sounds are coming up. So I find that quite interesting, of how we share different languages, whether it’s a color, it’s a sound, something formalistic. But to look at things through a political and social lens.

[VdF]: Thank you. So this can give like applying artists an idea of the, you know like of course through what lens can REFUGIA be approached. But at the same time, I think it’s because we have had some artists asking in the past days, oh, is this approach fine? I think that is really, REUGIA in the end  is also something very intimate and personal, as we all experience a situation that in which we need to seek for a REFUGIA, either if it’s like within our community or if it’s like a physical space or a mental space. We dive further, again into the application. So there are two cores to the application. So one is the film, the 2.5 minute film, that artists will submit which will have to, you know, be this the presentation of your interpretation of REFUGIA through a new or also like an edited past work and then very important is the proposal for the public commission, because the prize will then support the realization of a work which will be presented by CIRCA in 2027. So speaking of that, I would like to ask, the Curators’ Circle, if there has been a work either that they have curated or seen in the past years, which for you have attempted to create REFUGIA, like to create community to create community? Yeah. Physically or conceptually. Maybe we can start from Sam so we go the other way around. 

[SO]: I’m going to say something which I wouldn’t have said. I was just thinking about this like right before the call. I mean, as I said, I’m kind of a video, I’ve curated everything. and I see a lot of art. but I guess my focus through TONO and other projects is video. But I mean to say something that’s not video, which is maybe interesting because it isn’t just I think Ben brought this up. It doesn’t have to just be video makers applying for the for the prize. And also for me, I think REFUGIA it’s the survival and I think within groups of people surviving you create community. But I don’t think for me it’s necessarily community itself. So I think it’s just the response of So something that’s like not on the topic of video, basically, I was in Berlin for Berlin Art weekend, and there was a New York for Frieze, and the new National Gallery has this rooms of get Gerhard Richter  works basically responding to the atrocities of World War Two. And there’s an incredible Jack Whitten show at MoMA, and I had seen some of Jack’s work, and he’s worked across a lot of mediums, but I guess painting is is the main one. And I was even looking at the years because his work is like a similar of the kind of, basically these very abstracted paintings that reminded me of Richter’s. And I haven’t seen them before, and I hadn’t seen that many works by Jack Whitten and I was like, when were these made? And they were made ten years before. And I think this is we’re looking at 1950s, 1960s. So a different level of access to media and images. And I don’t know how much Richter whether it was like a reference. Other was a copy, whether there are two people in the case of Richter’s World War two, in the case of Jack Whitten, and it was, being a black man in the US and experiencing very specific acts of racism against him. So thinking about two people, very different cultural context, making works that formalistic were really similar, even in a time when there’s not the same level of image sharing. And it just made me think of this idea of both of these people are surviving and using an idea of abstraction to kind of, to respond to the world around them. So for me, that was, I don’t know, a response of REFUGIA, which I could imagine in CIRCA, whether it’s a moving image work that’s digitally created or film wise later. So I think it could be it could be quite literal and someone doing something, I don’t know, in a documentary style dealing with ecology directly. Or it could be something that’s actually maybe more abstract and poetic. In a more long winded answer.

[VdF]: Totally, thank you.

[BB]: I was thinking about, a work which is one of my, I suppose the work that I always turn to, 1990 (pad thai) by Rirkrit Tiravanija it’s a work that, he first made, at a gallery in New York, Paula Allen, in 1990, for the duration of the exhibition, Rikrit cooked pad Thai for the, the visitors every day in the space. I wrote a quote down from him talking about this work. He says I have more or less used the kitchen and cooking as the base from which to conduct an assault on the cultural esthetics of Western attitudes towards life and living in the communal act of cooking and eating together. I hope that it’s possible to cross physical and imaginary boundaries. Again, this is not a video work, but I think that’s what what’s interesting about CIRCA PRIZE is that it’s, the medium is video, but video is, a documentary medium,  and thinking about connectivity within the context of the prize within the context of REFUGIA. Food, for instance, has immense power to, to bring people together, to create this sort of safe haven, an ecosystem. And, I think of Rikrit’s work. And his work with food is really social work. Social outlooks. And, yeah, I turn to this work again and again, as sort of, a measure of, a North star of what art can do. I would love to see some, some, some works that were centering social dynamics.

[VdF]: Thank you Ben.

[AK]: And I love those examples and, yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s really lovely hearing, like, thinking about the life of work and, you know, like a video, like, when do you come to making video? And this happens a lot when I say I’ve commissioned an artist moving image, it comes often from like 2 or 3 years of different processes that will involve bodies that will involve eating together, thinking together, gestures, actions, thinking through abstraction. And I have like a few examples I was thinking about, but now I’m thinking about other things. Because I’ve been thinking for a while For the last couple of years, I’ve been thinking a lot about voice and choirs and song and ways that artists have been using that in their practice as as forms of gathering and process, but also as ways that, work has come together. But I guess the example I’ll give is, recent work by Monira Al Qadiri, who’s a Kuwaiti artist. And it’s a work called Gastromancer that was made a couple of years ago. But I showed it again. And, and Sharjah was really important for me because of, it used, lines and language from a, text, a book that was banned in the UAE called The Diesel. But it it’s basically telling the story of murex shells. It’s a beautiful installation with two three meter, murex shell sculptures that are speaking to each other. And their voice that the lines are speaking, spoken are voiced by two trans male actors, reciting words from this book. And it kind of tells the story of, and the transition that these shells are going through. So because of, shipping paint and the shipping industry, these beautiful murex shells, are being affected by this chemical. in the red paint of oil tankers. And they are, as a species, all turning male. So they’re going to be extinct very soon. And this is like something that’s happening to quite a few species. There are a few artists that have been like looking at different species that are experiencing this change. But what I wanted to bring to the audience, to the people on this live and to potential artists that are thinking about, making a work for REFUGIA. Is I was really struck by the way that Manira took this story, which isn’t a story it’s like happening this tragedy and starts to think through fiction and science fiction, to to tell this story in a different way. And audiences are enveloped in a red light when they enter the space and they are lulled into a conversation, a beautiful conversation between these two shells that are kind of sharing their experiences of transitioning, and changing. And, I was just thinking about how we can use fiction, how we can use voice and our senses, in the way that we tell the stories we want to tell.

[VdF]: Thank you Amal. Thank you, everyone. Each one of your answers definitely, also give a bit more, like an idea of the, the scope of the prize in inviting artists to be, to, like, think beyond the framework of video. As I mean, of course, as Ben said CIRCA PRIZE is not a prize for video artists. You can, present REFUGIA through abstraction, through,  like food, through voice, through sounds. You know, it doesn’t necessarily need to be like a visual presentation, in a strict sense. And of course, this also feeds into the imagination that is, in a way, will be championed, when reviewing also the proposals for the Public Commission, of course, the Public Commission will again be presented on the screen, on Piccadilly Lights. But then at the same time, I think that we also encourage artists to think of ways in which a project could start from the screen and go beyond the screen. And in that senseI think that what is very important to, kind of stress in the context in which CIRCA is active, which is public space. So of course these works are going to be shown, in a space where there is like a very wide audience. And that’s, of course, was the first, the at the core of CIRCA is the will to speak to many and also to speak to passerbys, so also to speak to people that have no idea that actually CIRCA is on Piccadilly and that suddenly are in the squares, Piccadilly or other squares and see something appearing, something different than advertisements on the screens. So that also goes back to like the power of an idea beyond technique and beyond aesthetics. Like there have been works that were in the finalists in the past years, which were incredibly strong because of their idea. They were not necessarily like the most like perfectly made work with a huge budget. But the idea was so strong that that was enough for the work to be part of the finalists. So it’s really like an invitation also to give a free, free flow to like ideas,  and to the power of ideas right now. So the last question to the Curators’ Circle, very important. Last but not least is like, what would you like to see? among the finalists? Like, what kind of artist works would you like to support through CIRCA PRIZE? And we start from Ben now. So we play this game of chess.

[BB]: As you said, Vittoria the CIRCA PRIZE is not necessarily for people who are solely working with video art.  Video is a medium and it’s a medium that we all have access to. You know, most of us, we have, a phone in our pockets that can record video. For me, idea is the most important aspect. And I invite or I would be happy to see video works that were, simple in conception. Shot using one’s means, a phone in a pocket. It’s, as you said, these don’t have to be high budget. High production, videos or artworks. So, yeah, I’m interested in artists working within their means, I suppose also also artists that aren’t solely working with with video that use that can use video as an entry point into a wider idea. But, yeah. For me, particularly, this acknowledgment of circumstance, just working with what you have is, is, I think, the most interesting facet of the prize.

[VdF]: Thank you. Ben. And Amal?

[AK]: I’m always excited and surprised and full of trust in artists. Expanding our minds. And I just wanted to say, I’m thinking of. I’m really open and excited to see a whole range of different approaches. And obviously, I’m always excited by artists that are working collaboratively with others that are using embodied ways of working, and that the projects are infrastructures for many other things as well. But I guess one thing I will say here is that I, the platform is amazing and we’re living in really intensely dark times, and I’m very excited by artists that are, just I want to embolden artists to be as courageous as possible at this time. It’s not a time for us to be shy about the world. Time to say something. So I’m really excited by being able to see work by artists who are doing that.

[SO]: I totally agree. I think that’s a great way to put it. And I also think thinking about the context of, as you said, I mean, this is an amazing platform, aside from the reach that I think CIRCA has, from digital audience and things, but also physically in Piccadilly,  Piccadilly Circus. So in this application, I hope people are really considering the context of where the presentation is. It’s not just a public space, it’s a large screen thinking about work that visually, as you said, Ben, it doesn’t need to be expensive, but it does need to be seductive. Like, you can make like, something very quickly on your phone that’s edited in an interesting way. But it should be like, what can grab thousands of people’s attention in this massive platform? What’s the most exciting thing you can think of within this, context? And just take advantage of this because it’s a really specific context as well. It’s not a gallery space. It’s not inside a museum. And you have kind of full command of so many people. So what can you show us? Yeah.

[AK]: And it’s like, I think square in the heart of Empire.

[SO]: Exactly. Basically to take advantage of this situation of the application.

[AK]: Yeah. Like, think about that rather than just, oh, this is a project that I might want to do be like, well, even if it’s something that’s in development, how does it adapt in this specific iteration for for the context of where it’s being shown I think is at least what I’m worth looking out for.

[VdF]: Thank you so much. Amal, Ben and Sam. If I was an artist listening right now, I would be so inspired by applying. I will just say three quick things. Very practical. So the applications are going to be open until the 20th of June midnight. And the applications are free. There is no entry fee. And you can find all the info in our link in bio and on our website. Like there are few steps, but just make sure to do those steps very nicely and fully. Yeah. So thanks again. There will be another, conversation

with the Curators’ Circle. We will tackle other, aspects of the prize, but, for now, if you have any questions, please reach out. See you soon. And thanks again.

[SO]: Thank you guys.

[BB]: Very nice to meet you both.

[VdF]: Have a good day and good evening, ciao!

Amal Khalaf is a curator and artist who serves as Director of Programmes at Cubitt (2019–present) and is also co-curating Sharjah Biennial 16 (February–June 2025), in the UAE and the Ghost 2568 (October – November 2025) in Bangkok, Thailand.  Amal Khalaf served as the Civic Curator at the Serpentine Galleries (2009–2023) and is now Curator at Large and Advisor for Public Practice, where she shaped the Civic programme and commissioned over 50 long term, collaborative projects, films and moving image works.  There and in other contexts she has developed residencies, exhibitions and collaborative research projects at the intersection of arts and social justice as well as commissioning dozens of artist films and moving image works. Projects include the Edgware Road Project and Centre for Possible Studies (2009-2013), Support Structures for Support Structures (2021-25), Radio Ballads (2019–2022) and Sensing the Planet (2021). She curated the Bahrain Pavilion for the 58th Venice Biennale (2019) and co-directed the Global Art Forum at Art Dubai (2016). She is a trustee of Mophradat, Athens, and not/nowhere, London, and a founding member of the GCC art collective. She has authored several published essays and recently has co-edited publications including Radio Ballads: Songs for Change (K Verlag/Serpentine, 2025), How We Hold (Serpentine/Koenig, 2023) and Vertical Atlas (ArtEZ, 2022).

Ben Broome (b 1994) is an independent curator, artist and writer based in London and with a curatorial focus on artists working at the convergence of mediums: musical performance and performance art, film and video art etc. With a human centric approach to curation and the resulting art viewership, Broome sets out to democratise the spaces he works in by nurturing cross-generational exchange and attempting to engage with new audiences (often through varied programming).

Sam Ozer is a curator, writer, and founder of TONO, a non-profit arts organisation dedicated to time-based artwork, with an annual festival across museums and music venues in Mexico City and Puebla, Mexico. TONO collaborations have also included projects with the Serpentine Galleries, London; the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; the Pérez Art Museum Miami; the Venice Biennale; Wiels, Brussels; Mudam, Luxembourg; and CAM Gulbenkian, Lisbon, among others. As an independent curator, she has organised projects in Athens, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Milan, and New York, and served as the inaugural video curator for Feria Material and Zonamaco fair (both in Mexico City). She previously held curatorial and programming roles at the Poetic Justice Group at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and at the Museum of Modern Art and Moma PS1 in New York.