Onyeka Igwe wins the 2025 Film London Jarman Award
An artist and researcher at Oxford University’s Ruskin School of Art has won the 2025 Jarman Award.
Dr Onyeka Igwe, Associate Professor and Director of Research at the Ruskin, was jointly awarded the prize with fellow artist Morgan Quaintance for what the jury called “significant bodies of work at the forefront of artists’ moving image practice”.
The Film London Jarman Award recognises artists working with film and video in the UK. Now in its 18th year, it is known as the UK’s most prestigious prize for moving imagery in art and has a reputation spotting rising stars of the art world. Previous winners include the Ruskin’s Head of School, Professor Daria Martin, and its Professor Contemporary Art, Oreet Ashery. All three are also closely involved in teaching and course design at the Ruskin.
Dr Igwe said: “I am deeply grateful to the jury of the 2025 Jarman Award to be jointly recognised for my moving image practice. Derek Jarman was a radical filmmaker who produced daring artistic films that reflected and were embedded in his community - I can only hope to emulate such a practice into the future.”
Professor Daria Martin said: “The Jarman Award is the top prize for artists’ moving image in the UK and it is well deserved. Onyeka is the fifth Ruskin associate professor to be nominated for the Jarman, and the third to win it. We are lucky to have Onyeka teaching and leading at the Ruskin- infusing her roles here with this fascinating research.”
Professor Dan Grimley, Head of the Humanities Division at Oxford University, said: “I congratulate Onyeka Igwe on winning the Jarman Award in recognition of her groundbreaking work in moving imagery. Among the many benefits of this success, students at the Ruskin School of Art now have the unrivalled opportunity to learn directly from three previous winners of the Jarman Award.”
Dr Igwe’s incisive essay films revisiting colonial histories, archives, and feminist embodiment were exhibited recently at MoMA PS1 and the Venice Biennale; currently at Tate Britain.
You can read more about the award and Dr Igwe’s work here.
