I am an artist, filmmaker, and experimental cinematographer focusing on the interplay between water, imagination, and cinema. Through a playful practice of filmmaking I explore the complexities of notions like fluidity, confusion, and regeneration. I use an inductive process mostly based on technical experiments, field explorations, and sensory ethnography. My studio is in Time Window, an art organisation of which I am a member.
Ninfa Fluida (upcoming Premiere at IFFR 2024) - A flatworm shapeshifts as the fragmented verses of Dutch river poet Dirk Smits murmur myths of the Rotte River. Departing from a droplet of the river, the cinematic dive slowly connects with the depths of human-water relationships. By blending microscopic cinematography with poetry and molecular biology, the film playfully confuses themes of regeneration, ecological destruction, and gender representation. While serving as an ode to the symbiotic relationship between water and imagination, "Ninfa Fluida" ultimately emerges as an initial stride towards questioning deeply rooted behaviours, ethics, and ecological imaginaries.
Ninfa Fluida is a film-research project composed of various materials gathered between 2022 and 2023. Developed through an unscripted, inductive process, it involved collaboration with the European Institute of Biology of Ageing in Groningen and the Stadsarchief Rotterdam. The film features a voiceover performed by theater maker Mathieu Wijdeven and is scheduled to premiere at IFFR 2024 in January.
Confusion at TENT Rotterdam - Confusion is a short film created through cinematographic and choreographic experiments conducted with dancer Noemi Calzavara during our collaborative residency at TENT Rotterdam in February 2023. The aesthetic is a product of manipulating the video signal of the camera, and no post-production effects were applied. We worked live, guided by the notions of non-human embodiment and confusion. The residency culminated in a live performance, blending dance with projected moving images.
Abidings (2021-Unreleased) - Abidings comprises four hybrid experimental films, each crafted from a single 35mm color photograph exposed with a shutterless camera. Rooted in my exploration of fluidity and continuity within cinematographic processes, these films extend the thematic essence of my previous work, 'Abiding' (2019), while showcasing advancements in animation, resolution (4K), and color quality. Although unreleased, a version of those films was put together for the film Prison With Songbirds directed by Ewan Macbeth. These films serve as subtle testimonies to my active role in the exposure process, reflecting a gestural engagement with the world. Abidings, in my perspective, embody an opening gesture—a manifestation of my broader artistic approach, which embraces exposition as a dialogical method: to expose and to be exposed
Abiding (2019) - Abiding (2019) is a 5-minute short experimental film, created from a single 35mm color photograph. Stemming from my two-year artistic research at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam (2018-2020), the film explores the interplay between techniques, gestures, and metaphors. I focused on dismantling the traditional camera mechanism to eliminate the separation between frames, creating a dynamic and relational exposure. This process, inspired by ideas such as the open-machine concept of Gilbert Simondon and the poetics of water of Gaston Bachelard, produced a continuous flow of light and a unique film syntax. The overall project was guided by my long lasting interest in the notion of fluidity and confusion.
The film, distributed by the Eye Film Museum and Doc Alliance Film, received a special mention at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival and won Best Experimental Film at the Yale Student Film Festival. It has been showcased in various venues, including the Eye Film Museum, Goethe Institute Rotterdam, IndieLisboa, IFFR, Kasseler Dokfest, Boston University and more. It is also used as educational material by the Media Department of the Yagamata University in Japan. Abiding is available for viewing here.
ἥλῐος (2020-Ongoing) - HELIOS is an ongoing series of small films, capturing simple everyday moments, often shot with my mobile phone. Each film centers around the sun, occupying the central frame. Through the lens, I delicately track its movements, variations, and effects, creating a visual and sensory diary. The first installment, Under_Exposure, was screened at the Eye Research Lab 2020, Eye Museum, Amsterdam. This is a side project.
Maquette: Art Exhibition Hilton Rotterdam (2019) - Initiators and Curators: Ugo Petronin and Felix Obermaier.
In September 2019, Felix Obermaier and I approached the Hilton Rotterdam with a proposal for an Art Space: The Breakfast Room. This unused space, a former restaurant and breakfast room, had been refurbished, boasting stunning ceilings and windows. Following a meeting with the hotel management, they generously granted us the space at no cost. With additional support from Hogeschool Rotterdam, Willem de Kooning Academie, and Piet Zwart Institute, we organized Maquette, a collective art exhibition that opened to the public in November 2019.
Maquette showcased photographic and moving image works by five artists—students from Piet Zwart Institute and Willem de Kooning Academy: Julia Gat, Yael Laroes, Sonia Mangiapane, Felix Obermaier, and Ugo Petronin. The exhibition emphasized differences and contrasts in format, processes, perspectives, and narratives. Some of these artworks later received awards at photo and film festivals.
Despite a successful opening, our academic and work commitments led us to disengage from our long-term project proposal: Hilton Art Gallery. Shortly after, the Hilton Art Lab emerged as a new endeavor.
Dance Series (2013 -Ongoing) - I began my filmmaking journey by filming dancers and musicians. Collaborating with experienced contemporary dancers has been a key part of my practice, often working on improvised and experimental projects. But some of these projects were also commissioned and showcased at events such as the Venice Biennial of Architecture and The Boulevard Theater Festival.
Featured performers in the excerpts include Margriet Kim Nguyen, Laura Devos, Teresa Noronha Feio, and Joan Afonso.
Rivers Embodiments: Thames - Experimental films, Dual HD Projection,color, stereo sound. (Excerpts). A series of 3 dual screening.
I have a fascination for waters and rivers, they drive most of my works. While living in South-East London (2012-2017) I started to engage with the river Thames. Often through walks, and sometimes through photographic or filmic observations. The film series Rivers Embodiments is an experimental work produced in 2016. It approaches the notion of embodiment through the body mapping of river footages. The HD slow motion footages, were refilmed on VHS and projected on the skin and the back of a moving body. Performer Margriet Kim Nguyen, used the muscles of her back, her bones and skin to recreate the water oscillations at the surface of the Thames, as to give the superimposition the depth of an embodied process. Installed as a dual projection.
Silk Imaginaries (2018) - Digital Photographs, Wet silk on model, Marseille 2018. Series of 10 photographs.
This photographic work was born out of my skepticism for Computer Generated Imagery's obsession with fluids aesthetics. In an improvised photo shoot, I covered a model with a wet silk textile I bought from a shop near the studio. The resulting images shift between antique drapery and H.R Giger's characters. One of the photographs was used for a theater show in London, The Odyssey: Circe, dir. The Orang Collective.
Natures Mortes (2017) - Digital photographs of ephemeral sculptures (170cm x 90cm). Marseille, Porte d'Aix, 2017. Collaboration: Ugo Petronin and Nicolas Nicolini. Series of 7.
With the Brexit on its way, I decided to leave the UK and London, where I resided for six beautiful years. I went back to my home town, Marseille and joined my friend and painter Nicolas Nicolini in his studio, Porte-D’Aix. This series of photograph is the documentation of a week of an improvise collaboration. We retrieved materials from the surroundings streets, textile shops, electronic waste, renovation waste (…) and recompose our findings in a limited time. Through a variety of techniques : painting, sculpting, cutting, breaking or covering, we collaborated, mostly without talking. This collaborative and improvised gesture merged the objects together on a textile surface. Photographed like portraits, we hoped that the photographic temporality would prompt a contemplative and poetic interrogation of the city. It is a work on Marseille, on its identities, memories and archeologies. A city I love, and I believe a city which deserves the constant effort to deconstruct and transcend the myriad of pre-defined perceptions that surround it.
