A film by Mieke Bal & Michelle Williams Gamaker

With an introduction by Mieke Bal

Time: Tuesday November 25th, doors open at 8 pm, film starts at 8.30 pm
Location: WORM, Boomgaardsstraat 71 3012 XA Rotterdam

About the Madame B project
The project explores the unspeakable but tenacious remnants of romantic sensibility that still hold back women today, combined with the emotional tentacles of capitalism that bring families to bankruptcy. Inspired by Flaubert’s 1856 masterpiece Madame Bovary, we examine the unspoken cultural politics of the cultivation of craving. In this project, we aim to highlight what contemporary culture still silences. The work attempts to show how Flaubert was in many ways a post-modernist and feminist. It explores the way dominant ideologies – specifically capitalism and its association with emotions, and romantic love with its commercial aspects – are still rampant after 150 years. The work consists of two parts, an immersive 19-screen video installation and a feature-length film for cinema.
For more info please check: http://madamebproject.com

MIEKE BAL (Heemstede, 1946), a cultural theorist and critic, has been Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Professor. She is the author of over thirty books. As a video artist, she makes experimental documentaries on migration and recently has begun exploring fiction. The project A Long History of Madness, with Michelle Williams Gamaker, has yielded a 120’ feature film and a series of video installation pieces. These have been exhibited nine times in one year, among other places in the Aboa Vetus – Ars Nova Museum in Turku, and in the Freud Museum London. Occasionally she acts as an independent curator.
www.miekebal.org

MICHELLE WILLIAMS GAMAKER (UK, 1979) is a video and performance artist. Her work varies from single frame portraits to more complex renderings of reality via documentary, fiction films and video installations. The subtle and sublime potential of storytelling through the everyday is at the root of her work. She has exhibited internationally since 2001; her documentaries include Elizabitch (2004), All About Évike (2005), Colony (2006) and Becoming Vera (2007). In addition to her latest feature film Madame B (2013) with long-term collaborator Mieke Bal, she is working on a series of performance-based videos exploring connections between animals and architecture. Williams Gamaker completed her Ph.D in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College. She currently works at de Gerrit Rietveld Academie as a Fine Art studio tutor, Amsterdam. She lives and works between London and Amsterdam.
www.michellewilliamsgamaker.com

For more information about the Master Fine Art click here
or email fineart@pzi.wdka.nl