Situations: models for exchange

Sometimes people call me ‘Live Wire'. I like this comparison, in my work I try to intensify the moment of exchange. That’s why in the course of years I concentrated myself more and more on work that moves somewhere between installation, object and live art. I create situations: intensive, often repetitive, or ongoing encounters / actions in a given, chosen or created space. In these situations rituals, cultivated or instinctive behaviour, and the active participation of others play an important role.

In my work I try to unite intuition and concept. I collect images, text and experiences out of life, culture, social systems and art history. These form an archive that I use partly direct and conscious to create a work, while other works are started in a more intuitive way. While spontaneous working, drawing for example, I see connections with a more conceptual framework. This can help me to make certain decisions for material, shape or colour and I can decide to implement a motif from my archive that is connected to the concept. The participants in my work can be divided in two groups. People that I invite to participate in the actions, to co-create a work and people who at a later stage get involved in or view the situation. I use codes and biological / cultural manners to approach people and on an intuitive level activate and involve / engage them in the work. Therefore I research conceptual structures like a game or a sport, more intuitive social structures as riding with a boom-car through the streets (Song of the Spine, 2008) and systems within different cultures and countries, for example exposing people at the world exhibition (BLINDED TOURIST, 2010). I search for connections between my intuition and concepts.

Art is my way of creating models for exchange: situations. By making special surroundings, situations, I try to intensify the moment of contact between people. I obsessively compose the situation for the other to direct.


Mariëlle Videler is a visual artist and works in Amsterdam, NL, or on location. Her work has been shown in art-initiatives, galleries, museums and festivals throughout the Netherlands, Europe and recently in China, Turkey and Brazil. In 2004 she founded Performance Lab. In 2003 she graduated from the fine art department of the Sandberg Institute (MFA) in Amsterdam. Before that she studied at the textile department at the Academy for Visual Art in Tilburg. Her work is financially supported by Fonds BKVB.