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Studio: Artcity (M6), NDSM-werf, Amsterdam
Ester Eva Damen makes short films and installations, works as a (screen)writer and teacher. Her work is primarily visual, poetic and experimental. Her work can be seen not only in the context of the visual arts, but also in the cinema and on television. The collaboration of film with dance and new music is a common thread in her work.
Ester Eva Damen is a visual artist and film maker. She studied art at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. As a director and screenwriter, she graduated from the Dutch Film & TV Academy and completed an MFA at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. She completed a Masters in Artistic Research at the University of Amsterdam, where she also obtained a teaching degree in art history. Since 2007 she has been the artistic director of a small foundation that promotes cross-over projects, called la Jetée after the classic experimental film by Chris Marker.
Ester Eva Damen works as a freelance scriptwriter and filmmaker. She began with the 16mm b/w film Windhangen (1998). She has written several drama scripts, such as for director Ineke Houtman, realised and broadcast Sahara (2007). She recently worked on a film project with three Frisian poets, supported by the Dutch Film Fund (New Screen) and Frisian funds: Rûzje Wyn/Whisper Wind, 2023. Minskewolf (Human Wolf) was also presented live on stage with visual fragments during the summer festival Explore the North 2021 with poet Elmar Kuiper, actor Rienk Nicolai and the band Tigers of Greonterp. The second film in this series, As the Fisken, is a collaboration with Frisian singer-songwriter Nynke Laverman. The third short film in this series, with poet Tsead Bruinja, is about a barn of sorrow (Hok fan Rou). A stage presentation with Tsead Bruinja (In sleat dy’t dreamde fan oseanen/ A ditch dreaming of oceans) will take place in 2023-24 at various venues in Holland, including the Explore the North and Meet me at the Lighthouse festivals.
One of the threads in her work is the collaboration of film with dance and new music. This began in 2001 in collaboration with choreographer Angela Kohnlein and composer Yannis Kyriakides. Their dance film RHOmbos – with a live performance by the Asko ensemble – was shown in various venues in the Netherlands, including the Groningen Museum, the Rotterdam International Film Festival and the Holland Festival, and was broadcast on Dutch television. With choreographer Marta Reig Torres she made To Santiago (2009). She collaborated with composer Christina Viola Oorebeek and percussionist Arnold Marinissen on the short Edges (2008), which was shown in several museums. The piece was adapted for toy piano and shown at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York (2015). With the dancer Suzan Tunca she worked on a film installation shot in Istanbul, The Body between Knowledge and Belief (2015). She recently collaborated with dancers Ilana Reynolds and Sabrina Huth on the project You Are Here (HD, 15′, 2019) and participated in their dance project A Meeting that Never took Place in Berlin (30′, 2021).
Ester Eva Damens’ work can be seen as an installation in the context of visual art. For example, during the manifestation The Eternal Body, she realised an 8 mm film installation in Rome and Utrecht in collaboration with the artist Anook Visser and the philosopher Erik Hagoort (2004-05). In 2010, after a visit to the desert and a stay with the Bedouins, she created the installation A fire called home. Sketch for a city, a paper labyrinth with projections, is an ongoing collaboration with architectural designer Joris Berger. A recent group exhibition with an installation of material from Valencia took place in June 2019 at the Nieuw Dakota gallery and NDSM Fuse, Amsterdam. 2020, the installation Stories of Absence was presented in collaboration with Joris Berger and dancers Sabrina Huth and Ilana Reynolds. She showed an installation in collaboration with graphic designer Melle Hammer at NDSM Wunderkammer (2023) and at NDSM Fuse as part of the group exhibition New Babylon (2024).