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In Amsterdam, there once was a zoo, lions, elephants, people and Nazis. The elephants, who never forget, tell the story to the young lions. During the Second World War, the story goes, eighteen Jews hid above the lion’s cages. The Nazis, who loved the zoo, cared about the lions and bought them the best meat, usually lamb. The old lions couldn’t eat all they were given, so they left some of it to their new “roommates” for three years.

Karolina Markiewicz and Pascal Piron’s collaborative work creates links between film, visual arts and theatre. At the center is the individual person as part of a human community, oscillating between resignation and hope. Karolina Markiewicz studied political science, philosophy and theatre and works as a film and theatre director. Pascal Piron studied visual arts and works as an artist and film director. Both work as teachers. Their cooperation started in 2013, with an exhibition for Aica Luxembourg entitled Everybody should have the right to die in an expensive car. In 2014, they made a first documentary called Les Formidables, which tells the story of five young migrants in Luxembourg. In 2014, they found the video blog kulturstruktur.com. In 2015 they worked on the project Philoktet, which includes the homonymous play by Heiner Müller and an exhibition relating the Greek tragedy to Robert Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb. At the same time they released their second documentary Mos Stellarium, produced by Tarantula and supported by Film Fund Luxembourg. Part of this project is the installation of Mos Stellarium, which offers different parts of the movie simultaneously, thus giving a non-linear reading of the film. Their current work includes a video series entitled Side-effects of reality. It consists in a number of short films and video installations. Our reality is a vague and imprecise thing, hardly accessible. The core idea of Side-effects of Reality is to push this inaccessible reality to a poetic level, thus creating through video and text a new image of reality. This image is not the same as its content, it has its own mythology, and by this offers a different take on understanding our reality.

FEVER (8-10 minutes) is an experience in virtual reality. For both adults and children, a high fever can mean hallucinations — mainly auditory and visual, lucid and in dreams. As a VR experience, FEVER refers to this brief hallucinatory state, acknowledging and interpreting the metaphysical process that occurs when one is within and yet removed from one’s own body, and the limits presented herein vis-à-vis body/environment and self/other. FEVER is also a virtual poem about illness and body fictions. FEVER is written and created by Karolina Markiewicz and Pascal Piron, in technical collaboration with Fabrizio Palmas, Antoine Thiry and Stefan Laimer (D). The music is created by Kevin Muhlen (L) joined by the voice of Ásta Fanney Sigurdardottir (IS) and by the narration of Elisabet Johannesdottir (L/IS).

Karolina Markiewicz and Pascal Piron’s collaborative work creates links between film, visual arts and theatre. At the center is the individual person as part of a human community, oscillating between resignation and hope. Karolina studied political science, philosophy and theatre and works as a film and theatre director. Pascal studied visual arts and works as an artist and film director. Both work also as teachers. They are currently working on several cinematographic and artistic projects. Sublimation – an interactive installation based dance interactive VR piece with butoh dancer Yuko Kominami, was part of College Biennale Cinema VR by the Mostra di Venezia in 2019 and had its premiere at the festival. The duo also works on My Identity is this expanse!, a location based VR piece on exile and resilience through poetry. The Living Witnesses, a feature documentary about anti-Semitism is currently in post-production and will be released this year.

METAMORPHOSIS is a location based experience in virtual reality. It thematises the state of fear, astonishment and need for human exchange, as well as the the new comprehension and the physical reduction of the world during an ontological rupture such as the Coronavirus pandemic. In History (from the Antique with the first plague to Modern times with the Spanish flu) every kind of epidemic or pandemic has brought significant changes in societies, people had to adapt and reinvent their lives exchanging as they could. The experience refers to this kind of societal metamorphosis that imply on one hand the awareness of a reduced and different environment as well as related to the exchange of different ideas about the future . For METAMORPHOSIS, different nature and urban places (outside and inside) have been scanned and recreated as 3D scenes in a point cloud aesthetic. These eight scenes form a large corridor that brings the visitor slowly through different stories and ideas. From naive, stunned to more elaborate projections about the future of existence.

Since 2013 Karolina Markiewicz (born in 1976 in Luxembourg, lives and works in Luxembourg) and Pascal Piron (born in 1981 in Luxembourg, lives and works in Luxembourg) have been developing a collaborative body of work that stretches across cinema, visual arts and theatre. At its centre lies the individual as part of the human community, torn between resignation and hope. In their poetically charged investigations, the two artists question contemporary myths and construct metaphorical narratives based on past events.

The great voyages to the "New World" were seen as expanding the frontiers of the visible and displacing those of the invisible. Therefore maps from that time render the real and imaginary. The film follows a voyage of the Brazilian Military in search of an imaginary island with the same name as their country. In the myth from 1483 Brazil, or Hy-Brazil, is known to exist to the west of Ireland and above the Fortunate Islands. ‘Visão do Paraíso’ is an examination of the capacity of the human imagination and computer simulations to construct environments. Amidst the fine threshold of the real, simulated, and imagined, the film analyzes the contemporary ideas of virtual reality and their ambition to expand the frontiers of the physical world into a "New World."

Leonardo Pirondi is a Brazilian filmmaker based in Los Angeles, São Paulo, and Porto. His films explore the infinite abyss between the multiple derived versions of reality through documentary, experimental, and narrative modes. Much of his work uses analog and digital manipulations on celluloid to examine the sociopolitical unfoldings of the intersections between imagination, science, myth, and technology. His films have been exhibited at various film festivals, institutions, and venues internationally, such as the International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Film Festival, BFI London, Melbourne, Edinburgh, True/False, Ambulante, Curtas Vila do Conde, Guanajuato, Wexner Center, REDCAT, and others. Some of his work exists in the collection of Cinematheque of the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro and The Film-Makers' Cooperative in New York. He holds a Film/Video degree from CalArts, is a Sundance Ignite Fellow, and is the recipient of the Allan Sekula Social Documentary Fund and the Tim Disney Prize for Excellence in the Storytelling Arts.

Be a Pattern for the World is acollaboration between artist group Piscine (consisting of Mark Tholander, Jens Settergren & Ida Thorhauge) and the artist duo Aeron Bergman & Alejandra Salinas. Be a Pattern for the World circulates around the concept of the chameleon. The chameleon as an abstract machine: "The chameleon, maybe. It hovers, as a turbine. An object can be monitored better by the turbine. These days anything can be imitated." The chameleon most of all stands for shape-shifting and adaptability. Adapting patterns of a given environment, while at the same time creating new patterns in the given space. The ability of changing one's appearance as a response to one's surroundings. What can be seen and what cannot; blending in and standing out; becoming distinct while also becoming part of the given space. The chameleon is the abstract machine which initiates a production of subjectivity in the relation between the individual and the surroundings, the figure and the background, the shape and the pattern, as well as the singular and the univocal.

Piscine is an exhibition phenomenon that handles solo, group and collaborative situations: a hybrid apparatus that sometimes acts as an artist group and at other times acts as a curatorial unit. Current members are: Mark Tholander, Ida Sønder Thorhauge, and Jens Settergren. Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas are an artist duo who co-founded Institute for New Connotative Action: an artist run initiative, and INCA Press.

The Moderna Galerija (Modern Art Museum) is the Slovenian national institution for modern and contemporary art. A museum which has a double calling, the exploration and showing of the Slovenian modern art and its tradition since the beginning of the 20th century, and the exploration and showing of contemporary art, its practice and its context. Situated in the town of Ljubljana, Slovenia's capital city, the Moderna Galerija contains three different areas; a major building, the Moderna Galerija itself; an old barracks of the Yugoslavian Army, the Metelkova; and the Mala Galerija. Such an organization and geographical relocation, allows the Moderna Galerija to specialize each building. The Metelkova is a great place for alternative Slovenian culture. The Mala Galerija is a space for innovation where personal exhibitions are shown, and the major building houses the museum's permanent collection, temporary exhibitions, a library and, an education center. The Moderna Galerija perceives itself as a go-between between the national and the international, between the local and the global. A place where modern society's realities are frozen, halfway between contemporary Europe's various geopolitical and cultural realities, between East and West, and between North and South.

Born in 1970, Bojana Pi?kur studied Philosophy at the Ljubljana University in Slovenia, and at the Prague Charles University, in Czech Republic, where she obtained a PhD in Artistic Theory. She is a curator at the Moderna Galerija and the Ljubljana Modern Art Musem, and she researches the phenomenon of contemporary art.

Les enfants s?en tapent de l?hiver qui arrive A se marrer sous les grands chats, à s?embrasser Sous de pauvres abris Il fera nuit de plus en plus tôt L`hiver tombé comme une sentence, Ça y?est faut allumer. J?aurais voulu que Mimi soit intact, rien n?aurait dû l?atteindre... Ni l?hiver.

Marianne Pistone et Gilles Deroo Vivent et travaillent à lille

The Old Fashion, is an adventure in humour, love, loss and longing for something more? a mélange of The Third Man, an advertisement for Prince Barrack Hussein?s sports water/ penis combo, strip club dance montages, mysterious villains and co-conspirators, and a certain fast food restaurant on Asstropolis. It pays homage to movie remakes and sequels, franchise food, dumbed-down politics, and mundane beauty. It is a portrait of contemporary South Africa, through the eyes of a deranged cat dictator bent on world domination.

Cameron Platter (born 1978 Johannesburg) His work is an intoxicating vision of Good vs. Evil, documenting contemporary morality through the telling of simple stories drawn and appropriated from the media, TV, films, art, history, pornography, battle scenes, politics, music, and religion. His targets and influences include Lamborghinis, Kawasakis and beautiful women in fishnets; megalomania and the mass media; James Bond and Richard Pryor; corrupt politicians; penis extension machines and strip clubs; children?s stories, crime fiction and gangster films; Southern African woodcut and craft masters; tabloid horror stories; wildlife, real life and things falling apart? Mixing traditional and new mediums, Platter creates a tableau that is a sincere homage to historical themes, an ironical take on contemporary Africa, and an ultra primitive, anti-aesthetic view on what it means to be alive today in South Africa. Recent projects include: Hard Times Great Expectations, Whatiftheworld Gallery, Cape Town; I Am Lonelyness, Hilger Contemporary, Vienna; The Old Fashion, Volta NY, New York; Black Up That White Ass II, Youngblackman, Cape Town; Dak?Art, Biennale de Dakar, 1910-2010: Pierneef to Gugulective, South African National Gallery and Art 39 Basel, Switzerland. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) New York.

The topological narrative follows the routes of an itinerant photographer and a young philosophy student, their searching movements in-between the fractures and folds of the spatio-temporal fabric of the contemporary city. These fragments started with a rereading of Andrei Tarkovsky and the brothers Strugacky’s concept of the zone, as depicted in their late 1970s science fiction script Сталкер (Stalker). We suggest that the zone — a structure outside and closed off in Сталкер — has now entered the very heart of the urban fabric. We aim to explore the precarity, porosity and violence of this biopolitical space-time, as an immanent part of the city, our bodies and desires. The narrative presents itself as an open structure, in which staged miniatures, image and sound collages, dialogue, and different searching movements meet each other; open, rampant, unresolved and contradictory — oscillating constantly between poetic meditation and discourse, diversion and gravity, quotation and philosophical speculation.

Michael Poetschko explores narratives of living/laboring/traveling/resisting within post-fordist and transnational realities, working with experimental forms of filmmaking and installation. His work has been exhibited and projected internationally, most recently at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, the Uferhallen in Berlin and Temp Art Space in New York City.

REFRAMING THE ARTIST deals with the stereotypical representations of visual artists in movies. The role of the artist both in fictional films and in biopics, classics of the twentieth century or recent popular films, is focused on the artist?s idiosyncratic behavior, his love affairs, his self-destruction associated with a mystification of his creative production or on encounters with other protagonists of the art world such as the collector, the art dealer, the model or the art student. Artists are almost solely painters, which reconfirms a predominant inadequate representation of visual artists in movies. In the video REFRAMING THE ARTIST fragments from approximately 50 different movies such as ?The Moderns? ?Surviving Picasso? or Vincent and Theo? are reset in the Dafen Oil Painting Village. Dafen, situated in Shenzhen, China, is the world`s largest producer of mass-produced handmade oil-on-canvas copy paintings supplying a global market. The video takes place in unmodified settings of the painters` own homes, studios, shops or galleries. There we see Dafen painters re-enacting movie scenes, in which they take over the role of a Picasso, a Van Gogh, a Pollock or several fictional artists, art collectors, critics, muses and lovers. In the ?Reframing the Artist? mass reproduction of oil paintings from Dafen and the recurrent use of artist stereotypes in the mass media film converge to a new narrative overlapping fiction and documentary. The Chinese painter is neither represented as a mere copyist nor does he apply to the notion of the ?original? artist according to our predominant definitions. REFRAMING THE ARTIST raises questions about authenticity in the context of global cultural exchange and it challenges the view of the ?exotic? Other, both the visual artist and the Chinese copy painter. The video is structured into five chapters: Artist and Authenticity, Artist and Market, Artist and Crisis, Artist and Student, Artist and Model. Painting props taken from the same original movies re-appear as copies in REFRAMING THE ARTIST.

Education 2002 B.A. Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste (Städelschule), klasse Ayse Erkmen, Frankfurt am Main, DE 2007 Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, NL (Selected) solo exhibitions 2013 Rongwrong, Amsterdam, NL 2012 Art space Apguyeong, open in November en gecureerd door Ji Yoon Yang (De Appel CP 2008/09), Seoul, KR, (aanstaand) (exhibited works: Noire et Blanche + new production) 2012 Lothringer_13_Halle, gecureerd door Felix Ruhöfer, München, DE (exhibited works: Noire et Blanche, Statues Also Die, German Indian, Reframing the Artist, The Mad Masters) 2012 Gallery Weingrüll, Karlsruhe, DE (exhibited works: Noire et Blanche, Reframing the Artist, Statues Also Die) (Selected) group exhibitions 2013 ?Transfer Korea-NRW?, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and Kunstmuseum Bonn, National Museum of Korea, Arko, (upcoming) - new production: Ornaments of Property 2012 Monitoring/ Kasseler Dokumentarfilm und Videofest, (upcoming), DE - Statues Also Die 2012 ?Generation Loss?, Green Papaya Art Projects, Manila, PHL 2012 ?Signals: For Real?, IFFR, 41st International Film Festival Rotterdam, gecureerd door Edwin Carels, NL - Reframing the Artist 2011 Museum der Moderne Salzburg, ?role models-role playing?, AUT - The Mad Masters 2010 Arti et Amicitae, Amsterdam, ?Villains and Heroes?, Sascha Pohle/Marco Pando, NL - German Indian 2010 Dafen International Contemporary Art Exhibition, ?Convection? Dafen Sub-Venue, Shenzhen Case Pavillion, 2010 Shanghai EXPO, CN - Reframing the Artist 2010 Taipeh International Art Center, Urban Nomad Video Art Section, TW - Reframing the Artist 2010 ?works?, basis, Frankfurt, DE 2008 PARA/SITE art space, ?Terminus?, gecureerd door Christina Li (De Appel CP 2008/09), Hong Kong - The Swimmer 2008 ?Beyond Paradise?, SMBA Stedeljik Museum Bureau Amsterdam, gecureerd door Delphine Bedel and Ayako Yoshimura , NL - The Swimmer 2008 ?Vertrautes Terrain?, ZKM - Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, gecureerd door Gregor Jansen and Thomas Thiel - German Indian 2008 Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main, DE, `All-Inclusiv A Tourist World - The Swimmer (Selected) Filmfestivals 2012 BIEFF, Bukarest, RO, Reframing the Artist 2012 58. Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, DE, Reframing the Artist 2012 41st International Film Festival Rotterdam, NL, Reframing the Artist 2011 HomeShop, Jue Festival, Beijng, CN, Reframing the Artist 2009 Videonale 12, Bonn, DE, The Mad Masters¬ 2008 International Film Festival, 16th Curtas Vila do Conde, PT, If I were you ? LAS VEGAS NEW YORK BLACKPOOL, The Mad Masters 2008 37th International Filmfestival Rotterdam, NL If I were you ? LAS VEGAS NEW YORK BLACKPOOL Residencies 2006-2007 Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten/Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, 2009 Meetfactory, Prague, CZ 2011 Incheon Art Platform, KR 2012 Changdong Studios, Seoul, KR (upcoming) Prices, Awards 2012 Principal Price, 58th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, for Reframing the Artist, Netherlands, 2010 Fellowships/stipends 2011/12 The Netherlands Film Fund, research subsidy on DVD movie piracy 2011/12 Fonds BKVB, standard werkbudget for Noire et Blanche in combination with a residency in Incheon Art Platform, Korea 2010 Fonds BKVB, werkbudget for Detective project ? The Student of Prague 2009 Fonds BKVB, standard werkbudget for MeetFactory artist residency 2009 The Netherlands Film Fund, NL for Reframing the Artist 2008 Fonds BKVB, basis stipend, NL 2007 Hessische Kulturstiftung, DE, for The Mad Masters and If I were you ? LAS VEGAS NEW YORK BLACKPOOL 2006 DAAD, Berlin, DE 2006 Kunststiftung NRW, DE 2003 Kunststiftung NRW, DE, for Safety Hour 2003 Kulturstiftung Dresden der Dresdner Bank, DE, studio stipend `dynamo.eintracht`

One of the pragmatic solutions to the problem of how people will be able to find their way in a theatre or cinema are the small lights that, hidden in this place or that, show the audience where to step and where not, and where to choose a chair. Now imagine: complete darkness. Enter. Ask yourself to stop imagining and look at . ..... .:.:...:::ccccoCCoooo:: While looking at it, the question becomes: what is looking? At this point the guiding lights may come back with a vengeance. Usually we look in order to orient ourselves. Either in response or consequently, much arts is directed at disorienting ourselves. That leaves the question unanswered as to what looking is. Still, that is one of the key questions in Pointekers work. In order to be able to answer that question, Pointeker has to both steer away from, and connect to the average language of cinema ? and photography. The way in which he succeeds in doing that reminds one of concrete poetry. But this is not more than a reminder. Concrete poetry was by and large a response to something else: what we knew already. Dialectically, concrete poetry remained bound up with what we already knew. In terms of cinema, Pointeker somehow knows how to escape that route. He doesn?t show it, though. What he shows is what appears. We find ourselves in complete darkness. A light shines, some lights shine: a car makes its way. Let?s take that literally: ?a car makes its way?. This is not a car that is being used to get from here to there. Making light, the car makes a way. Other images follow: all make way. We look, caught in the light of what is being shown ? and we start to sense what looking is. (Frans-Willem Korsten)

A cinematic poem shrouded in shadow and mist. An image of water whose surface reflects the surrounding light. The hands of a woman holding a purse in the gloom of a city street. A snow-covered mountain landscape with massive trees reached by a cable lift. Through the sensitive composition of the film, these seemingly banal images begin to speak and reveal an inner world, an inward dream landscape of anxiety, alienation, isolation, and desire. Entrancing poetry relies on a delicate grasp but it’s impossible to resist its inner magic. (Hubert Poul)

Ben Pointeker is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Vienna. His work often sets in between film and photography and is concerned with poetics, patterns of narrative cinema, the notion of time, ambiguous realities and fantasy. Previously based in The Netherlands he graduated from Piet Zwart Institute and won the Prix de Rome basic award. He is also a graduate of the University of applied arts Vienna and was artist in residence at Wiels in Brussels, in Shanghai and most recently at Bòlit in Girona in the framework of The Spur. He has exhibited at institutions such as Secession Vienna, Kunstpavillon Innsbruck, Contemporary Art Center Vilnius, Filmmuseum Amsterdam and major film festivals.

Toppling statues and symbols, constructing new memories, framing the destroyed landscape, writing letters to the future, reversing power dynamics: BIG BANG HENDA is a documentary-poetry-manifesto about the work of Angolan artist Kiluanji Kia Henda. He takes us on a journey through his creations and reflections, which are at the forefront of anti-colonial thinking, urging us to consider how generations that grew up during or in the aftermath of the war reinterpret this event.

Fernanda is a screenwriter and director, living between Brazil and Portugal. She has been working in the intersections between Brazil, Portugual and the African Portuguese speaking countries and former colonies of Portugal for decades. Her first feature as a writer, Mosquito, was the opening film at the Rotterdam FF (2020) and won the Critics Prize at the São Paulo International FF (2020) besides touring dozens of festivals. Her second feature, The Last Summer, is currently in production after being selected for the Script Station at Berlinale 2023 and RACCONTI. She has been developing, writing, and directing for TV, streaming and cinema, and some of her works have received awards and nominations at the Brazilian Cinema Academy, New York TV&Film Festival, Hollywood Woman’s FF, among others. She is part of the Torino Film Lab 2023. She is a co-founder of MUTIM, a woman in film association in Portugal.

?Blisko? (?Close?) ? about alienation in the big city. The artificial light inside the night trams creates a new reality.

I was born in 1979. Between 1998 and 2004, I studied at the Władysław Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. In 2004, under the tutelage of prof. Grzegorz Przyborek, I obtained the certificate and title of Master of Fine Arts in asvertising photography. Since 2003, I have also participated in multimedia workshops held by prof. Konrad Kuzyszyn and Łukasz Ogórek, MFA. I was a post-graduate, free participant there. Since that time, my interests hav revolved around film and video. In 2007, I went on a three-month scholarship to France, organised by the Strasbourg Klub, the City of Strasbourg as well as the CAAC.

In A Collision of Sorts, inhabitants of the City of Philadelphia, (Pennsylvania, US) go there way, as discontinuous moving dots on a flat surface. The world in which this film plays is Google Earth: an alienating landscape of almost seamlessly stitched-together satellite images of the familiar planet we humans are moving around on. On Google Earth, nothing moves. Buildings, bridges and cars seem warped and flattened and compete for attention with the black weirdness of their own shadows. A virtual camera shows this frozen flattened landscape, reconnoitring the cityscape of the city. Meanwhile we hear sounds and voices. People and animals are down there, crossing the country. It is them who share a physical reality: we hear very intimately their breath, the rustling of clothes, traffic, their vehicles. They travel from one place to another giving the suggestion of a destination. They talk about encounters, visual, economic, political, social and personal but never the main characters seem to meet. Until a bad dream of one of them seems to come true.

Esther Polak and Ivar van Bekkum work together as artist-couple under the name PolakVanBekkum. Routed in the history of the Dutch realistic landscape depiction, they express personal experiences of moving and space. Their projects are often informed by collaborations with participants, be it humans, animals, or even the rays of the sun. Their work has been shown at amongst others: FID Marseille, Transmediale Berlin, Ars Electronica Linz, ZKM Karlsruhe, Media-Lab Prado Madrid; INIVA London, IMAL Brussels, Rento Brattinga | Galerie Amsterdam, Pixelache Helsinki, Lagos, Biennale Marrakech, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. 2016 Special Mention for the film Once We Get There Riga 2015  Expanded Media Preis For Network Culture at Stuttgarter Filmwinters - for “The Mailman’s Bag” 2005 Golden Nica for Interactive Art at Ars Electronica together with Ieva Auzina, with MILKproject. Esther Polak studied at the Rijksakademie for visual Arts in Amsterdam and the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague, NL Ivar van Bekkum studied journalism at the School for Journalism, Kampen, NL

Tales from the Source offers a gaze on the landscapes of the Democratic Republic of Congo to translate a sense of its unfathomable power, diversity and knowledge. The scenery is presented as a character acting as a living entity and inhabited by the symbolism of Congolese traditions. The visual approach borrows techniques from multispectral imaging, resulting in an otherworldly experience with surreal lights and colour. Combined with an original musical composition by Bear Bones, Lay Low, we enter into a sensory dialogue with the landscape, an intelligent, ageless being in constant transformation that challenges our perception.

Léonard Pongo (b. 1988, Liège, Belgium) is a visual artist and filmmaker who lives and works between Belgium and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Pongo's work explores the complexities of perception, and representation while challenging conventional portrayals of the DRC with a focus on traditional narratives and symbols, and their connection to the land. Initially trained as a photojournalist, Pongo's artistic journey began in 2011 when he traveled to the DRC to cover the presidential elections. This experience profoundly transformed his approach to photography, shifting from objective documentation to a more subjective and experiential mode of expression. His family and local communities challenged his initial perspective, encouraging him to develop a more nuanced and intimate portrayal of Congolese life. Pongo is renowned for his mixed-media installations that integrate textiles, photography, diverse printing techniques, and moving images. His work draws deeply from Congolese cosmologies and oral traditions, particularly embracing the concept that "not everything is visible." Using specialized techniques including full-spectrum photography that captures wavelengths beyond human vision, he reveals aspects of landscapes and experiences typically hidden from view. His long-term project "The Uncanny" (2011-2017) explores daily life in the DRC through evocative black-and-white imagery that creates a dreamlike atmosphere, while "Primordial Earth" (2017-ongoing) focuses on the land using color photography, textiles, and video installations to evoke a sense of spirituality and interconnectedness. His latest film, "Tales from the Source" (2021-2024), extends his focus on traditional narratives, focusing on the luba cultures and highlighting the intertwined nature of culture and environment. Pongo's collaborative approach involves working closely with communities across the DRC, drawing inspiration from their knowledge, stories, and traditions and creating visuals that align with the lineage of Luba traditions by creating contemporary forms connected to ancestral concepts and visions. His work has been exhibited internationally at prestigious venues including the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, the Tate Modern in London, the Dakar biennale in Senegal, and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. In 2023, his first monograph "The Uncanny" was published by Gostbooks, and in 2025 he was selected as one of ArtReview's "Future Greats" by photographer Roger Ballen.

"On the 16-th of February 2005" video work resembles a time-based painting depicting (documenting) a woman sitting by a table. At first sight, the sight looks completely still. The image awakens curiosity and contemplation as to what really happens as time moves forward. Consequently, the viewer could clearly determine that objects change locations, however the process of their movement remains unnoticeable. In the end time moves ?faster?, revealing some of the surrounding space and the author in the process of videotaping what is happening in front of her eyes. The video footage has not been altered in order for me to reach the "stillness" effect; it is completely true to the real site and time.

I was born and raised in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. I started my fine art education at my age of twelve with painting and drawing lessons. I graduated the College of Theater and Fine Arts, Plovdiv, Bulgaria in 1991. Later I studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria, majoring in Stage Design in the class of Professor Svetoslav Kokalov. I concentrated mainly on classical playwrights such as Sophocles, Shakespeare and Chekhov. In 2001 I graduated the MFA Photo and Digital Imaging program at The Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, USA, class of Professor William Larson and media theorist Timothy Druckrey. My current work investigates the limits of perception, attempting to express in different forms the presence of the hidden/invisible. Since 2001 I live and work in Chicago, Illinois.

Naked bodies are buffeted by water accompanied by the music Il Temporale from the opera La Cenerentola and the overture to Il Barbiere di Siviglia both by Gioacchino Rossini. The film is part of a show by Carles Santos: El compositor, la cantante, el cocinero y la pecadora (The composer, the Singer, the Cook and the Sinner).

Ever since the 1960s, Pere Portabella involved himself in the movements against the Franco dictatorship and in support of liberties. In 1977, he was elected senator in the first democratic elections, and took part in the drafting of the Spanish constitution (1978). Since 2001, he has chaired the Fundación Alternativas. Before working as a director, with Films 59, he produced some of the most emblematic spanish films: Los golfos (1959) by Carlos Saura, El cochecito (1960) by Marco Ferreri and Viridiana (1961) by Luis Buñuel wich provoked a scandal that obliged him to move to Italy. In 1964, he wrote the screenplay for Il momento della verità with Francesco Rosi. He began directing in 1967 with No compteu amb els dits followed by his first feature-length film, Nocturno 29 (1968). Vampir-Cuadeduc (1970) is a key work in his filmography, togheter with Umbracle (1972), represents a phase of radical rupture with the production of those years and marked him as one of the most original forces in underground and avantgarde cinema of the time. After Informe General of 1976 he only returned to directing in 1989, with Pont de Varsòvia. In 2001, his films became part of the collection of the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA). In 2002, he was the only Spanish artist to be invited to Documenta 11 in Kassel. In 2008, the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA) acquires a copy of Vampir-Cuadecuc and Die Stille vor Bach (2007).

As publicity for the exhibit Miró L`altre, organized by the Colegio de Arquitectos de Catalunya in 1969, the Board commissioned Pere Portabella to film Miró painting the "poster" for the exhibit on the ground floor windows of the building. Portabella was not interested in simply filming a testimonial documentary. However, he said he would do the film if after the exhibit Joan Miró himself, with the help of the cleaning staff erased his own painting. Joan Miró accepted the idea without a doubt. The complicity between the film maker and the painter is evident in the filming.

Ever since the 1960s, Pere Portabella involved himself in the movements against the Franco dictatorship and in support of liberties. In 1977, he was elected senator in the first democratic elections, and took part in the drafting of the Spanish constitution (1978). Since 2001, he has chaired the Fundación Alternativas. Before working as a director, with Films 59, he produced some of the most emblematic spanish films: Los golfos (1959) by Carlos Saura, El cochecito (1960) by Marco Ferreri and Viridiana (1961) by Luis Buñuel wich provoked a scandal that obliged him to move to Italy. In 1964, he wrote the screenplay for Il momento della verità with Francesco Rosi. He began directing in 1967 with No compteu amb els dits followed by his first feature-length film, Nocturno 29 (1968). Vampir-Cuadeduc (1970) is a key work in his filmography, togheter with Umbracle (1972), represents a phase of radical rupture with the production of those years and marked him as one of the most original forces in underground and avantgarde cinema of the time. After Informe General of 1976 he only returned to directing in 1989, with Pont de Varsòvia. In 2001, his films became part of the collection of the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA). In 2002, he was the only Spanish artist to be invited to Documenta 11 in Kassel. In 2008, the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA) acquires a copy of Vampir-Cuadecuc and Die Stille vor Bach (2007).