Gerrit Rietveld Academie

In Go Tell It to the Mountain, the speculative realms of archaeology and forensics intersect with these rumours. The word-of-mouth stories blur the boundaries between reality and myth, between the presence of human and animal. The video installation invites audiences to explore her intangibility and anonymity in a secret valley where all gossip distorts. Rumors nurture this creature. Different voices guide you. She is ever-changing. ‘Go Tell It to the Mountain’ follows a mystery about a bird-woman living in the deep in the forest. The mountainserves as a backdrop where rumors are shaped, distorted and reborn. Whispers weave a narrative that grows on its own. This sculptural installation invites people into her timeless surroundings. By digging into the earthy surface, We encounter a possible hybrid bird-human in an eternal space, remnants of her existence and gossips perpetually surrounding her.

Ava is a child with a limitless imagination. She is a city kid who loves to play in her bedroom and letting herself get carried by her vivid dreams. Sometimes her dreamy fantasies find a way out of her porous bedroom walls and she finds herself riding on her mini motorcycle on infinite highway tunnels. Sometimes, reality finds its way back into her bedroom bringing her into dangerous situations. How thick can the child’s bedroom walls be? The films points at the boundaries and ambiguous limits of the child’s imaginary when facing violence.

Detested Unrested Attested Arrested' is a video work that deals with the topic of pressure. We constantly have to face pressure In our everyday lives: to perform at school or work, to conform, to fit in, and the pressure that we create for ourselves. 'Detested Unrested Attested Arrested' confronts these points of pressure and looks at how they influence an individual. In a semi-biographical rap performance, different facets of pressure are being explored; like the pressure that comes with the success of your peers, exploring or coming to terms with your own sexuality and the constantly intensifying pressure of unfinished work and overdue deadlines. 'Detested Unrested Attested Arrested' is both minimal in presentation as well as extravagant in its usage of effects.

A documentary short about the mice infestation at Gerrit Rietveld Academie Amsterdam, featuring interviews with mice-experiencers and an adoption of baby mice and atmospheric shots of mice, both dead or alive. "When the croissant inside my locker was eaten by the mice I got curious: how many pieces of art have been eaten by mice in the Gerrit Rietveld Academie?" - Qianfu 'Chenny' Ye, 2019

By combining new and existing film footage, surprising scenes emerge, like the one in which a woman, dressed in an evening gown, laconically makes a mobile phone call inside a boxing ring.

In the surreal short film 'Raderen', the viewer is confronted with the oppressive limbo between waking and sleeping of a young woman that lies in her bed. On the relentless rhythm of time she is propelled through the grim metropole of the mind, until she wanders into redemption.

A lecture by an ambiguous character who, in a mix of rhymes, skipped thoughts, stories, repetitions and actual facts, and with the use of props to illustrate his points, questions the way we perceive and understand the world around us.

Kappa, a woman in her 30s, finds herself in a facility that promotes social integration to individuals. Soon enough, she witnesses several attempts for interaction, which lead to a somewhat awkward reality. She therefore creates a survival mechanism and allows herself to get captivated within her fantasy world and reality. Caught into creating scenarios, she redefines communication as well as the borders of where a relationship starts and where it ends.

Incorporating genre elements from the TV course, the mafia film and the love tragedy, this kaleidoscopic film shows the awakening love between a record seller and a chin, which is threatened by gangsters.

A boy longing to become part of a motorcycling group leads us into a silver horizon, where through an array of moving images of dust, remote landscapes, and boys dressed in fragrant leather, we witness visual portrayals of what it means to feel ‘foreign’.

How Do You Talk About Depression? explores the different ways we approach conversations about depression, and how the experience can feel for those concerned. Through four perspectives, the video dives into different vocabularies around depression – political, geographical, corporate, personal and bodily.