Sarah Vanagt
Born in Bruges (Belgium) in 1976, lives and works in Bruxelles.

Sarah Vanagt (1976) makes documentaries, video installations and photos, in which she combines her interest for history with her interest for (the origins of) cinema. Her work includes films such as After Years of Walking (2003), Little Figures (2003), Begin Began Begun (2005), Boulevard d'Ypres (2010), The Corridor (2010); and video installations such as Les Mouchoirs de Kabila (2005), Power Cut (2007), Ash Tree (2007). Her work is shown at film festivals (FidMarseille, Viennale, Doclisboa, Idfa Amsterdam, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Madrid/Berlin, Hors Pistes Centre Pompidou), and in museums (Frankfurter Kunstverein, Fact Liverpool, NGBK Berlin, Shedhalle Zürich). The silent short film Girl with a fly (2013) was first shown at the 5th Biennale of Moscow. Vanagt's most recent film In Waking Hours (2015) premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

On Screening: In Waking Hours
HD Video, 18' - 2015

With the publication of the Ophthalmographia in 1632, the Amsterdam physician Vopiscus Fortunatus Plempius sheds new light on the age-old question of how seeing works. His answer is an invitation to experiment: Enter with me into a darkened room and prepare the eye of a freshly slaughtered cow. He emphasizes that anyone may carry out this experiment, at home, "demanding little effort and expense." “And you, standing in the darkened room, behind the eye, shall see a painting that perfectly represents all objects from the outside world,” promises Plempius. In the short film In Waking Hours we see historian Katrien Vanagt - who studied the Latin writings of this Plempius - cloaked in the skin of a 21st-century disciple of Plempius. Her cousin, filmmaker Sarah Vanagt, is there and captures how this modern "Plempia" meticulously follows her teacher's instructions. Thus, in a dark kitchen in Brussels, they become witnesses at the birth of images upon the eye.


RECENT SOLO SHOWS
2015 'In Waking Hours 1632 - 1851 - 1976', International Film Festival, Rotterdam / 'Jongen een trap afdalend', Parking Kathedraal, Mechelen, Belgium (permanent art work) 2013 ‘The Wave’ (co-directed by Katrien Vermeire), photos and film, Argos Centre for Art and Media, Brussels 2010 ​​‘Pocket Cinema’, Museum Het Domein, Sittard, The Netherlands (including Solar Cemetery, Lightboxes, History Lesson, Les Mouchoirs de Kabila, Silent Elections, Ash Tree)

RECENT (SELECTED) GROUP SHOWS

2015 'Gastvrijheid voor vreemdelingen', Belgische Schone, Museum Singer, Laren, The Netherlands / 'Dust Breeding', Workers leaving the studio, National Gallery of Arts, Tirana, Albania 2014 'Little Figures', Silver Bliss, Argos, Brussels 2013 ‘Girl with a Fly’, Biennale of Moscow, Russia / ‘The Wave’, Psychiatrisch centrum Duffel, Belgium / ‘In the path of the verse’, In Between, Kasteel van Gaasbeek (part of “Diwans”, a web documentary by Laurent Van Lancker en Marc Colpaert) / ‘The Corridor’, The Service Garage, Amsterdam

WEB
www.balthasar.be