Lourdes TV

Paulien Oltheten – Lourdes TV
Wednesday 5 March, 19.00–21.00
Rijksakademie Schip
entrance free, RSVP here

Paulien Oltheten’s girlfriend develops a psychosis and slowly disappears from her life.

During sleepless nights surfing the Internet, Paulien chances upon a WebCam that films the Grotto of Apparitions in Lourdes 24/7. The ritualised actions she follows for months offer solace to her despairing thoughts.

For a year she makes recordings of the 24/7 live stream of the grotto at Lourdes. With fascination and a humorous gaze, she follows the daily rituals of the priests, nuns, and pilgrims as they prepare for mass or shuffle in and out of view.

Why can’t she detach herself from these people who cling wholeheartedly to the Virgin Mary? Is it to get a grip on her girlfriend’s mystical delusions?

In this poetic fixed-camera-frame film a story about gradually letting go of a loved one takes shape.

Paulien Oltheten (Nijmegen, 1982) is a visual artist and filmmaker. She mainly focuses on the physical aspect, daily rituals and routines of people and objects. How they stand, hang, stagger, lean, push and pull in the world around them. Like a contemporary urban anthropologist, she documents such behaviours and patterns, often in a purposefully chosen location or context. She then structure and annotate her research materials to craft a narrative in the form of photography and video, notes, publications, lectures and performances.

She currently works with gallery Les Filles du Calvaire in Paris and is affiliated artist with collective Space Oriented Artistic Practice (SoAP).

She studied at the Academy of Arts and Design in ’s-Hertogenbosch (2000–2004) and at the Rijksakademie (2005–2006). Past residencies include ISCP New York (2013) and Cité internationale des arts in Paris (2017).

Awards: Nouveau Prix Découverte des Rencontres d’Arles (2018); Dutch Doc Award (2012); Lecturis Art Award (2010); Sybren Hellinga Prijs (2004); st-Lucas Essay Prijs (2004)

www.paulienoltheten.nl