Project class of artist Melanie Bonajo
Annual theme "Real Magic"
Summer term 2016
Melanie Bonajo examines through her photographs, videos, installations, performances and music projects the significance of spirituality for today’s younger generations, and she questions our contemporary belief systems, value standards, and our relation to nature. Shamanism, feminism, empathy and ecological consciousness are the central frames of reference of her current work. The Dutch artist lives and works in Amsterdam and New York. She studied religious studies, mysticism, and Western esotericism at the University of Amsterdam as well as art at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, and the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her work was exhibited and performed in international art institutions, among which the Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Moscow Biennial, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, and PPOW Gallery, New York; and her films were shown at festivals such as the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and the Berlinale. Furthermore the artist has written for several art magazines, was creative director of Capricious Magazine and curated among other shows, the QQC performance festival for pop music in visual arts at the Paradiso, Amsterdam. In addition to several books published, in 2013 she released the album Inua with her cosmic-folk band ZaZaZoZo (in collaboration with Joseph Marzolla). In 2016 Bonajo was shortlisted for the Dutch Pavilion of the 57th Venice Biennale and awarded the IFFR Tiger Award for her film Night Soil / Economy of Love.