Mieke Vanmechelen
Contemporary Artist

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POSTMODERNIST ART
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Mieke Vanmechelen (b.1974)

Born in Antwerp, Belgium, Mieke Vanmechelen lived in Flanders until the age of six before moving with her family to a mountain farm on the Beara Peninsula, County Kerry, in 1981.

Vanmechelen works at the intersection of experimental moving-image media and documentary film. She was the Kerry Filmmaker in Residence for a three year period (2017-2020) and holds a BA from Trinity College Dublin (1996) and an MA in Art & Process from Crawford College of Art & Design (2014).

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Her work has been selected to screen by The Scottish Royal Academy Edinburgh, RAGFF New York and NY Independent Film Festival (2020); Luminous Void, Experimental Film Festival as part of LUX Critical Forum Cork Artists’ Programme (2019); Residual Minority was a finalist for Florence Film Awards & selected for the Intimate Lens Ethnographic Film Festival, Caserta Italy (2019).

Other screenings include, Wunderground Film Festival, Verbeke Foundation, Kemzeke, Belgium (2019). The Irish Real Life Festival, Ontario (2019); Níos Doimhne, at Solas Nua in collaboration with Dupont Underground, Washington D.C.; Leyden Gallery, London (2018); Kerry Film Festival, Official Selection (2017); Dingle International Film Festival (2017); The Centre for Media and Culture Research, School of Arts and Creative Industries, London South Bank University; The Department of Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht, Killarney and Void, Derry, Northern Ireland.

Vanmechelen is the founder of the Kerry Film Forum (supported by Kerry County Council & Kerry Screen Commission) and instigator of ‘mink’ a virtual space where moving image artists’ expand their practice and present their work.

Awarded the Kerry County Council Creative Work Development Bursary (2020), her film Bó (2019) was supported by Creative Ireland, while Rath won the Audience Choice Award for ‘best feature’ at Dingle International Film Festival (2016). She received EU funding under the Creative Europe (Culture Sub-programme 2014–2020) and Creative Work Development Bursary, Kerry County Council, Materials and Equipment Bursary from Kerry County Council (2016). On graduating from CCAD she received the Thomas Dammann Junior Memorial Trust Award (2015).

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