STILL FILM: PHOTOGRAPHY IN MOTION

Core exhibition CONTACT Photography Festival 2025

PRESENTED BY THE GOETHE-INSTITUT

The Goethe-Institut is collaborating with unique Berlin artist film project Videoart at Midnight to look at the creative manifestations and manipulations of photography in film and video. Pınar Öğrenci uses archival material to investigate the history and present of Turkish and Kurdish migrants in German coal-mining areas. Helena Uambembe performs her shadow image in front of an oversized 1975 photo portraying the leaders of South Africa’s factious opposition movements. Andreas Koch leads us in and out of a skilful mirrored montage of photographs from his favourite bar amidst a cacophonous voice-over.

Free public programs at the Goethe Space: 

May 1, 2025,
5.30-7pm
Opening reception with Berlin guest curator Olaf Stüber, Videoart at Midnight
7-8.30pm
“Still Film: Photography in artist film and video”, a show & tell conversation with curators Olaf Stüber & Jutta Brendemühl
 

More events to be announced!

The artists:

Andreas Koch was born in Stuttgart in 1970. He studied at the Berlin University of the Arts under Dieter Appelt and Christiane Möbus and graduated with a master’s degree. In Berlin’s burgeoning and vibrant art scene, he ran the Koch and Kesslau Gallery together with Sybille Kesslau from 1996-2004. In 2020 he received the art prize of the city of Nordhorn. Andreas Koch is a visual artist as well as the editor of the art critic magazine von hundert, a book designer and now also the publisher of the small art book publishing house permanent.

Pınar Öğrenci was born in Van, Turkey, in 1973 and lives in Berlin. Öğrenci’s work has been exhibited at documenta fifteen Kassel, MAXXI Museum, Rome, 12th Gwangju Biennial, 6th Athens Biennial, the Istanbul off-site project of Sharjah Biennial13, Kunsthalle Bremen, SALT Galata İstanbul and others. She had solo exhibitions at Frac Bretagne Rennes, Berlinische Galerie, Hundertwasser Museum Kunst Haus Wien, Tensta Konsthall Stockholm, Depo İstanbul. She was awarded the Villa Romana Prize 2022. 2024/25 exhibitions include Disobedience Archive at Venice Biennale, Biennale Matter Art Prague, Harvard Art Museum and Museum of Arts and Crafts Hamburg.

Helena Uambembe was born in Pomfret, South Africa, in 1994 and lives in Berlin. She grew up in a family history shaped by the Angolan civil war: In 1975 her parents sought refuge in the troubled community of Pomfret alongside other families of the 32nd Battalion, a special-forces unit within the South African Defence Force made up largely of Black Angolan men. Uambembe, a member of the Kutala Chopeto collective, explores narratives surrounding history and place. She has been awarded the DAAD Scholarship Berlin, Baloise Art Prize Basel, David Koloane Award Johannesburg and Germany’s ars viva Prize 2025.

The curators:

Olaf Stüber is a curator of contemporary art with a focus on time-based media and is best known for the internationally renowned artist’s cinema project Videoart at Midnight, which he founded in Berlin in 2008 together with Ivo Wessel and has directed and curated since. In addition, Stüber publishes a video art edition, lectures internationally on artist film and video art in the context of the art market, curates programs and exhibitions for institutions, fairs and festivals, consults for institutional and private collections and has been a member of numerous juries. He has been living in Berlin since 1993.

Jutta Brendemühl is an arts programmer, advisor and writer with a focus on international cultural relations and encounters. She is the Program Curator at the Goethe-Institut Toronto and serves on the boards of UKAI Projects and the European Union Film Festival Toronto. Jutta is a North American Cultural Diplomacy Initiative Collaborator, a fellow of the Toronto Arts Council/Banff Centre Toronto Cultural Leaders Lab, an advisor on the DOK Exchange XR Showcase, as well as a founding member of the Toronto Global Impact Network and SALOON, an international community of women-identifying art professionals.

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