User:Thyes
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[edit] Myriam Thyes
visual artist, new media
The swiss / luxembourgish artist studied painting and videoart at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dusseldorf, Germany. 1990: artist in residence for 6 months at the 'Cité Internationale des Arts', Paris. Since 1993, Thyes participates in exhibitions and festivals. She has realised solo projects in public areas with flag installations in Dusseldorf (1996) and Luxembourg (1997). Since 1999, the artist focuses on videoart, animation and digital imagery. Since 2000, Thyes has as well been realising media art projects on public screens, and is giving lectures, artists talks and workshops. 2005, the participatory animation project FLAG METAMORPHOSES was funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, and her video ASCENSION won the 'Depict! Award' at Encounters Shortfilm Festival in Bristol, UK. Since 2006, Thyes has presented FLAG METAMORPHOSES at festivals and exhibitions internationally. FLAG METAMORPHOSES has received the Multimedia Prize 2006 at Avanca Festival, Portugal. In 2007, the video installation MALTA AS METAPHOR was funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture; the video triptych MULTIPLE MADONNA was shown at Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow (UK), in the frame of 'Timeloop – video art from Germany'. FLAG METAMORPHOSES was shown at URBAN SCREENS Conference + Public Art Events in Manchester (UK). 2008, FLAG METAMORPHOSES was shown at 'Nothing to declare. Triennial of Contemporary Art Oberschwaben', Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen (DE). In August and September, the artist worked in Glasgow with a grant. 2009, Thyes had solo shows at Kunstverein Rhein-Sieg in Siegburg (near Cologne, Germany) and at relate art gallery in Meilen (near Zurich, Switzerland).
Myriam Thyes is representated by imai – inter media art institute, Germany. .
[edit] Artist's Statement
For the last 15 years, my themes deal with symbols, myths and visual signs from architecture, politics, films, or religions. My artworks are explorations of their meanings, a questioning, reassessments, and creations of new associations. In order to undermine entrenched representations, I work directly with them, to develop them further, transform them and juxtapose them against new representations. I use animation, abstraction, collage and found footage (video stills) to present critical views of the current political, (psycho-)social, cultural and religious systems. Symbols of identities become elements for dialogues.
Flags have become again very significant during the last years - in politics, propaganda, new nationalisms, liberation wars, sports, and fashion. On the other hand, flags received new meanings and became signs of hope or nostalgia / homesickness for the increasing number of global migrants. In 1996 and 1997 I've been working with flags as installations in public areas: I created and painted new designs/symbols on flags and hang them beside and between official flags. Since 2004, I started working again with themes I had used before in painting, drawing and photo assemblies, but this time with animation and digital imagery. Thanks to the internet, I got the possibility to open the flag animation project to other artists. Flag Metamorphoses lays stress on the relations between nations as changing ones: Only in the permanent re-creation of values, symbols and ways of life, in mixing with others and differing from others, cultures and societies stay alive - one more reason to gather as many individual and international points of view about flags as possible.
