Filmmaker Rosalind Nashashibi is National Gallery’s latest artist in residence

The UK filmmaker and painter Rosalind Nashashibi will be given free rein at the National Gallery in London as the institution’s artist in residence for 2020. “Over the course of the year [beginning this month], she will work in the National Gallery’s on-site artist’s studio, benefitting from the close proximity to the gallery’s collection, research and teams,” a statement says.

The rebooted initiative replaces the associate artist scheme which launched at the gallery in 1989, allowing contemporary artists such as George Shaw and Paula Rego to work with the gallery collection.

The new residency, part of the gallery’s developing Modern and contemporary art programme, will culminate in a publication and display featuring Nashashibi’s work in summer 2020. The work will then be acquired by the Contemporary Art Society charity for a partner organisation, the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness, Orkney.

“As well as £30,000, an artist in residence may receive a further award based on particular personal or familial responsibilities,” a gallery statement says. Nashashibi will receive £47,100 for the year-long residency. The new programme is also sponsored by the insurance company Hiscox.

Nashashibi, a senior lecturer in fine art at Goldsmiths, University of London, was a Turner prize nominee in 2017; she also represented Scotland at the 2007 Venice Biennale. In the 17-minute film Electrical Gaza (2015), she combines footage of domestic life in Gaza with animated scenes.

Officials at the National Gallery stress the flexible nature of the new programme. “An innovation in the award is that it takes into account the responsibilities that an artist may have,” they say. “I am glad that the set-up of the residency is made for the actual working lives of artists today, enabling both work and the caring for family responsibilities at the same time,” adds Nashashibi in a statement.