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Award</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Times" size="+2" color="#000000">The 2005 Leonardo
Global Crossings Award</font><br>
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<div><font face="Times" size="+2" color="#000000">Leonardo/ISAST is
pleased to announce that the First Leonardo Global Crossings Prize has
been awarded to<b> Abdel Ghany Kenawy and Amal Kenawy</b>, of Cairo,
Egypt, a brother-sister team who have been collaborating on
large-scale installations since 1997. These works, whether tower-like
structures containing glass balls rising up towards the ceiling or
tunnels leading to a block of frozen ice in a room surrounded by
chiffon, demonstrate that there is no "natural" barrier
between the worlds of art and science.<br>
<br>
The Kewanys' unique collaboration is built partially upon Abdel
Ghany's background in the physical sciences and Amal's background in
filmmaking, yet their individual efforts cannot be so neatly defined
as singularly "scientific" or "artistic."
Committed to their creative processes, they work very closely together
on every aspect of their projects from conceptualization and
structural design to production and execution in their workshop.
Characteristic of all their projects is the power of texture and
image, and sensorial play with surfaces between spaces (loosening up
the inside/outside polarity)--whether it is a "textured"
video, the texture of light projected on a triple screen of chiffon,
the texture of human hair bows on a pair of wax legs in a display
case, or the textures (acoustic and visual) of a beating heart on
which a pair of lace gloved hands is sewing a white rose appliqué.
For examples of their work see
<http://www.thetownhousegallery.com/html/artists/amal_abdelghany_k<span
></span>enawy.htm>.<br>
<br>
The three runners-up for the 2005 Leonardo Global Crossings Award
are<b> Regina Célia Pinto</b> (Brazil---web-based and CD-ROM
art),<b> Kim Machan</b> (Australia---curator, arts producer and
consultant) and<b> Shilpa Gupta</b> (India---Internet, video and
installation works).<br>
<br>
Other nominees for the 2005 award included:<b> Andres Burbano</b>
(Colombia),<b> Kibook</b> (collaborative team of Visieu Lac
[Vietnamese-Australian], Mark Wu [British-born Chinese] and Stefan
Woelwer [Germany]),<b> Nalini Malani</b> (India) and<b> Hellen Sky</b>
(Australia).<br>
<br>
The 2005 Leonardo Global Crossings Award, funded in part by the
Rockefeller Foundation, was juried by an international panel of
experts co-chaired by Nisar Keshvani (Singapore) and Rejane Spitz
(Brazil). The award recognizes the contribution of artists and
scholars from culturally diverse communities worldwide within the
emerging art-science-technology field. The award is part of the
Leonardo Global Crossings Special Project, supported by the Ford
Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.</font><br>
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<div><font face="Times" size="+2" color="#000000">For additional
information about the Leonardo Global Crossings Award, please visit
<http://leonardo.info/isast/awards.html>.</font></div>
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