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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©Courtesy of the Artist - Photo: Orla Barry

Mandrake, Manhole, Bunker, Trou, 1998-2019

Els Dietvorst

Drawing , in situ

red-black ink on the wall

In 1998, Els Dietvorst presents a pen drawing at the exhibition Mandrake, Manhole, Bunker, Trou, that unfolds on the walls of Brussels bar De Dolle Mol. For *Dooltocht/A desperate quest to find a base for hope, a new version will be realised in the M HKA. The wall drawing is reminiscent of ancient rock paintings; in it, people, trees and earth seem to be intertwined. The mandragora from the title is a plant that, allegedly, was already described on Assyrian clay tablets in the 15th century BC; in ancient times, magical powers were attributed to its root. But the work might just as well be a vision of the future. Dietvorst advocates a more cyclical approach to the concept of time, in which present, past and future are interconnected.

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