The Dover Prize would offer the time, grounding, and creative ecosystem I need to grow. The funding would support travel to and time spent in Darlington, as well as research, production, and the development of new moving image and installation work — including site-specific engagement, response, and intervention in Darlington itself. This kind of longform, durational support is essential to the way I work: through presence, through relation, and through allowing the shape of the work to emerge from where I am. I’m ready for what comes next — and I want that next phase to begin in Darlington.
My work is grounded in relational process, critical intuition, and slow, collaborative research. If awarded the Dover Prize, I would root myself in Darlington through careful, sustained engagement — allowing the place, people, and histories to guide the next evolution of my practice. I gather not only through formal research but through walking, listening, witnessing, embodied presence, and somatic attention. My process is not prescriptive, but it is rigorous. It is built on preparation — intellectual, physical, and creative — and shaped through intuition and attunement.
I have a background in music (attuning, frequency, sound), anthropology (observation, witnessing, gathering), and history (unearthing, contextualising, tracing memory). These disciplines shape how I respond to place — not by imposing meaning, but by opening to it. I arrive with perspective and experience, but I listen first. I want the work to emerge from Darlington — its textures, silences, and stories — and contribute something that feels specific, felt, and expansive.
Whether through installation, sound, moving image, or participatory encounter, I hope the work might honour the complexity of the area and build connections that extend beyond the project — offering something of resonance to the local community and wider artistic conversations.
I am a South African interdisciplinary artist of Lithuanian heritage working across moving image, sound, photography, text, installation, and performance. My practice is rooted in what I call critical intuition and creative discernment — a methodology of slow attention, relation, and process that moves between theory and touch, intellect and feeling, structure and improvisation. I work with themes of grief, rupture, care, and memory — often exploring the emotional terrain of long-term caregiving, dislocation, and transformation. My process is collaborative. I see collaboration as a constellation — a gathering of voices and influences that shape the work, while I hold and shape the form. Much of my work is developed in close dialogue with others — through conversation, sound recording, research, improvisation, and attentiveness to place. I often work with fragments, repetition, and silence. I want the work to be immersive, layered, and felt — a space for presence, ambiguity, and complexity. My film god as a boy (2023), made in collaboration with writer-performer Kopano Maroga, premiered at That’s What X Said (Brussels) and was later screened at You Is for Unity (London, 2024). process (2024), a Super 16mm work developed with sound artist Nic Van Reenen, was exhibited as a looped installation at Enso House Gallery (London, 2024). My current project I’ll come following you explores the rupture caused by a traumatic break-in at our family home and the long emotional aftermath of placing my adopted mother (who is my paternal grandmother) into care. The project spans photography, film, sound, and writing, and is still evolving. It has evolved into a practice and process I have called grief work. A portrait from the series, mom, I’ll follow you still, was awarded the 2024 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Commission Prize and exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery. The resulting commissioned portrait will enter the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery and be exhibited in London from November 2025. My work is rooted in deep research but shaped by feeling. I seek forms that hold emotional intensity without resolution — that emerge from relation, and open space for encounter.
I hold a BA (Honours) in Strategic Brand Communication from Vega School of Design (2016), where I graduated with a First Class Pass, and a BA in Anthropology, History, and Music from the University of Cape Town (2014), where I was awarded Humanities Scholarships and placed on the Dean’s Merit List.
While I do not hold a formal degree in visual or applied arts, my creative education has always been interdisciplinary and conceptually rigorous. My academic grounding in anthropology and history informs my sensitivity to context, narrative, and lived experience, while my training in strategic communication taught me how to shape ideas with clarity and intentionality. Together, these fields have laid a foundation for the kind of deeply researched, emotionally resonant, and relationally attuned work I now make.
Since graduating, I have developed a self-led creative practice grounded in moving image, sound, photography, installation, and text — shaped through collaboration, experimentation, mentorship, and continual learning. My work is often research-based but led by intuition and emotional logic. I consider myself to be a rigorously self-trained artist, continually evolving through practice rather than institutional structures.
In 2024, I was awarded the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Commission Prize for my image Mom, I’ll follow you still, part of my ongoing project I’ll come following you. The commissioned portrait will enter the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery and will be exhibited during the 2025 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition in London.
This is my first major UK-based award, received shortly before relocating to London and being granted a Global Talent Visa. Much of my work to date has been self-funded or made possible through collaborations, exhibition invitations, and community-based support.
Though I have not yet received formal grants, my work has received growing recognition through commissions, exhibitions, and selections. I continue to apply for support that will allow me to deepen and expand my practice — especially in moving image, installation, and interdisciplinary research.
The Dover Prize would be my first major project-based bursary, offering vital time, grounding, and resources to develop a new body of work. After five years as a primary caregiver, I’m ready to return fully to artistic practice — to dig the ground, and begin again.
While I have not formally run an artist-led space or studio, collaboration and community have sustained my practice. In South Africa, where access to funding was limited, we often had to be resourceful — calling on trusted collaborators who fed into the work with care, creativity, and rigour. This led to the formation of informal creative networks that extended well beyond individual projects. We shared knowledge, made work together, and supported each other’s growth.
Many of my projects have grown from this ethos. god as a boy, for example, was developed in collaboration with writer-performer Kopano Maroga and artist Yonela Makoba, through a process grounded in ritual, conversation, and shared authorship. My ongoing project I’ll come following you has evolved through deep collaboration with sound artists, photographers, and thinkers — each contributing through intuition, generosity, and relation.
Since moving to London, I’m seeking to rebuild and root myself in a new creative community. I hope to expand these relational modes of working into more structured forms — including open research spaces, collaborative workshops, and experimental residencies. These are not peripheral to the work. They are the practice itself — lived, shared, and sustained.
Yes. In 2024, I was awarded the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Commission Prize by the National Portrait Gallery. The award was given for my image Mom, I’ll follow you still, part of my ongoing body of work I’ll come following you — a long-form, interdisciplinary project exploring rupture, caregiving, memory, and transformation following a traumatic break-in at my family home. The commission involved creating a new portrait that will enter the Gallery’s permanent collection and be exhibited during the 2025 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.
This was my first public commission in the UK and a pivotal moment in recognising my practice as grief work — work that lives in emotional landscapes often left unspoken. The project continues to evolve across photography, film, sound, and writing.
The award also enabled me to apply for and receive a UK Global Talent Visa, endorsed by Arts Council England. It became a foundation for relocating to the UK and beginning to root my practice here.
The commission affirmed my work as grounded in critical intuition and creative discernment — a methodology that moves between rigor and feeling, theory and touch, relation and rupture
Yes. In 2024, I was awarded the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Commission Prize for my image Mom, I’ll follow you still, part of my ongoing project I’ll come following you. As a result of this award, I am currently working on a new commissioned portrait for the National Portrait Gallery (UK).
This commissioned work will be unveiled in November 2025 as part of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition and will enter the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery.
This is my first formal acquisition by a major public institution. The commission represents a pivotal milestone in my practice and has offered significant visibility as I establish myself in the UK. It also supported my successful application for a Global Talent Visa, endorsed by Arts Council England.
This recognition affirms the emotional and artistic depth of my work, which is grounded in grief, care, and critical intuition. I hope it marks the beginning of further institutional dialogue and long-term contributions to public collections and cultural memory.
My work has been featured in several respected art and photography publications, including IMA Magazine (Japan), Oath Magazine, and Nataal, as well as online platforms such as It’s Nice That, Griot Magazine, Bubblegum Club, and Vogue Italia Online. In 2020, IMA Magazine profiled me in an eight-page ‘New Talent’ photography feature. My work has also appeared in both volumes of Oath Magazine—I photographed the cover of Volume II and was interviewed in their ‘Go-Sees’ section and the “Try A Little Tenderness” feature. I was also spotlighted by Nataal for my collaboration with designer Lukhanyo Mdingi.
These features have not only highlighted my visual practice but have engaged with the philosophical and relational nature of my approach—foregrounding intimacy, process, and collaboration. My photography has been included in group shows and auctions curated by platforms like Strauss & Co. and has been exhibited internationally.
My commissioned portrait for the National Portrait Gallery, awarded through the 2024 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, will enter the Gallery’s permanent collection and be exhibited in late 2025, offering an important next step in the visibility and critical reception of my work within the UK.
I am not currently represented by a commercial gallery, though I have worked closely with a number of independent curators, project spaces, and collectives over the last few years. Much of my practice has developed through artist-led initiatives, direct commissions, collaborative networks, and editorial platforms.
In South Africa, I exhibited with THK Gallery in Cape Town (2018), and have had work shown at Fourth Gallery, Oath, and through virtual auctions with Strauss & Co. I have been supported by Oath Magazine since its inception — featuring in print, exhibitions, and public talks. In the UK, my work was selected for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Commission by the National Portrait Gallery, marking a pivotal moment of recognition and visibility as I establish my practice in this new context.
Although I remain independent, I am actively seeking opportunities to root myself in long-term partnerships with curators, institutions, and galleries aligned with my ethos — spaces that are process-driven, relational, and open to interdisciplinary and moving image work. Representation, for me, would be less about sales and more about shared values, sustained dialogue, and platforms that allow for growth, experimentation, and the full range of my interdisciplinary practice to emerge and be supported.
I have not yet taken part in a formal residency or artist placement scheme, though much of my work has been made through site-responsive and collaborative processes that echo the intentions of residency structures. My practice has often relied on self-initiated residencies — creating time and space through collaboration, travel, and community exchange.
In 2018, I worked in Lagos, Nigeria with designer and artist Daniel Obasi, producing a short film and visual series that was later shown in group exhibitions and featured in Oath Magazine’s inaugural issue. This project was developed in close relation to place, culture, and artistic dialogue. I’ve also developed work in collaboration with collectives and institutions in South Africa and the UK, including That’s What X Said (Brussels), Enso House (London), and You is for Unity (London, 2024).
In many ways, I have had to carve out my own “placements” — working nomadically, across geographies and disciplines. I am now at a point in my practice where I would greatly benefit from the focused time, infrastructure, and local grounding that a formal residency offers. I’m eager to root my work more intentionally, and to build meaningful, sustained relationships with new environments, artists, and communities
Email: jessenavarre@gmail.com
Address: 167A Isledon Road, London, N77JP, GB
Local Authority: London Borough of Islington
