Els Dietvorst

"I am going to take you on a tour through my work. It will be a story tour because stories are what link us as humans. Stories make us exist, make us connect through time and space."

Els Dietvorst (°1964) is a socially engaged artist. She uses dialogue, experiment and intuition as her main artistic strategies. Ever since the 1990s, she has been moved by social issues such as migration, racism and climate change. Dietvorst reflects on the human condition. As a result, major themes such as life and death, anxiety, alienation and desire are addressed in her work. She focuses particularly on the position of the outsider, pointing her gaze to/aiming her attention at those people and events that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Her choice of medium, whether it be actions, documentaries, films, mud sculptures, installations, drawings or theater texts, depends on the specific circumstances and the individual nature of each project. Many of her artworks have therefore been given away or destroyed, or have perished.

In 2020, many of these works were remade again for the exhibition *Dooltocht/A desperate quest to find a base for hope at M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp). She is currently researcher on a PhD: "Partisans of the Real" at the Royal Academy / University of Antwerp.

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Els Dietvorst

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(c)scan: M HKA, 2019

Els Dietvorst & Orla Barry 'De Terugkeer van de Zwaluwen - Le Retour des Hirondelles - The Return of the Swallows' (Zwaluwenmagazine), 1999-2005

Els Dietvorst, Orla Barry

Periodical , 5 nummers: ill. ; 39,7 x 29,6 cm

ink on paper

Languages: Dutch, French, English

Publisher: Brussel: Firefly vzw

This magazine is a story. A story of people and of a place. The centre of Brussels. The hole between the hills. The Hearts. Les retours des hirondelles. Le retour vers le centre.

Set of 5 magazines, published in the framework by social projects 'De Terugkeer van de zwaluwen'. Layout and texts by the artists.

'The Return of the Swallows' was a social-artistic project that lasted for six years (1999-2005). Els Dietvorst made an exhibition in a gallery in the 'Anneessens' district in Brussels, together with a group of 'Swallows', inhabitants of the district. The project resulted in a film.

'The Return of the Swallows' started in 1999 in the Anneessens district, close to the South station of Brussels. Fascinated by this 'transit' neighbourhood and the local population, the Belgian artist Els Dietvorst started a new project. With no artistic form or concept in mind Els Dietvorst began researching the 'roots' of this area and its inhabitants, the migration streams and the historical background. She found 33 so-called 'swallows' from different cultures and social backgrounds to collaborate with her on a six-years project.

The stories and dreams of these swallows are the starting point for this multimedia project, the project gives reality a poetic dimension. From 1999 to 2005, this process resulted in a series of shortfilms, a feature film ('The March, The Burden, The Desert, The Boredom, The Anger', 2004), publications and photographs. The swallows collaborated in all aspects of the work. 'The Return of the Swallows' was finalized in 2006 with a multi-media exhibition in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.

During the exhibition, 'The Return of the Swallows, Five Years in the making in the Palais des Beaux-Arts' (April - May 2005), Firefly presented the records of the project in what they called The Swallow Archives: a mobile structure (resembling a swallow's nest that can be dismantled and easily set up elsewhere. The 'module' can be used in schools, cultural centres, museums and independent artspaces.

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