We are very pleased to be host to the illustrious Belgian artist filmmaker Els Van Riel for the final phase of the Re-engineering the Industry, Debrie Contact Printer programme: Pilot Residency.

Els Van Riel’s work deals with the poetic phenomena of the physical and questions the essential elements such as matter, motion, light, time, perception and relativity.

Her artistic approach has an innate experimental dimension and a strong scientific inspiration.
In a very pragmatic way, the act of questioning becomes methodology, which encompasses the mechanical apparatus of cinema, as a way of examining a hypothesis, (but neither validating or invalidating it) opening up a metaphysical horizon to the viewer.

With her work, Els Van Riel constantly invites us into a situation of a renewal of questioning, wonderment, a contemplation of the world in its combined simplicity and complexity.

For Mire it was obvious that her approach, where the mechanical device underlines the search for meaning, was extremely relevant to the context of the Debrie Contact Printer pilot residency who’s aim is for an artistic re-appropriation of a technical heritage.
We are looking forward to discovering the new work that will result from Els’ intense engagement with the machine.

During the residency, there will be two opportunities for the public to meet the artist:
– Thursday 24. August 18.30 : Dining with… a discussion with the artist about her residency and her work around a meal at Mire
– Thursday 31. August 20.30 : Screening . Works by and curated by Els Van Riel- at the  Plateforme Intermédia

Els Van Riel (Belgium 1965) lives and works in Brussels.  She studied photography and cinematography and worked as a photographer, editor and producer for various photo, film, video and theatre productions.
Her films, video’s and installations explore the impact of detailed changes in moment, movement, matter, light and perception.

“With links to the tradition of structural film making, the work by the Brussels based film and video maker, Els van Riel, explores the basic elements for cinema -time and light- and develops a form for new aesthetic pleasure, bypassing any symbolism and narrativism. For van Riel the projector is a central figure in the cinematographic act of giving form to a screening, performance or installation. The mechanical image source becomes actively present as if it were a living object.”
(L’ART MÊME, April 2009)