My name is Esther Viersen, I am an art practitioner, I make work in the cross over area between visual arts and theatre.
After studying BA Theatre Design at the art academy Minerva, Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen, I developed a long career as a designer and educator. I worked as an art director on various national and international films, highlights are 'Michael' a short film by Francesca Toetenel which was shown at the NFF Utrecht and 'Zara' which was shot in Southern East Turkey and shown at IFFR Rotterdam. I designed for events, spaces for various locations interior and exterior for Uitmarkt Amsterdam. In the Theatre I worked for DNOA KC The Hague, Vondelpark openair theatre, Youth theatre Hofplein Rotterdam and South Holland, Mini & Maxi. Known television work is for Paul de Leeuw and Opium tv.
Theatre has always been my favorite field of work. A famous quote I like to refer to is 'In Theatre we see life and in life we see Theatre' from Jean Genet.
Due to a strong ambition for research, setting up projects and curiosity for art, life and the world, I developed new work during my Master's degree in Theatre at the Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, the Toneelacademie Maastricht. In this new work I stage the idea of death. Through the use of video, photography and projection, I stage death as a creative process. I do this by working on various visual approaches; I'm using performative elements of water colour painting, the performative power of everyday life and the relationship of the linear aspect of time with the material knife and paper. With this I explore new visual metaphors. The content of these processes evolve around the topics of time, transcience, the passage of time, aging, death. The relationship between past, present and future. This relationship is undeniably present when someone dies, leaves this world. In this process of death, dying, the period before, the moment itself, the time of farewell and the time of grief, mourning, we see the past, the present and the future.
Besides creating this new work as an artist, I have a position as program coordinator of the spatial design course at the MBO Theaterschool Rotterdam.
I am always looking for connections and I am fascinated by processes, actions. I'm not looking for an end result, but I'm showing a process.
Kind regards,
Esther Viersen
