Johan Grimonprez Portrait by Jean-Pierre Stoop, Photo: Jean-Pierre Stoop
This summer term the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG Karlsruhe) will host a masterclass and workshop for registered students with Belgian filmmaker and artist JOHAN GRIMONPREZ
ORGANISED BY: Prof. Marine Hugonnier / Prof. Filipa Cesar / Helin Ulas from Media Art Department at Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design / Prof. Matthias Bruhn from the Art Research and Media Philosophy Department.
PARTICIPANTS: Prof. Thomas Lauterbach with the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg students and Amna Murtada Khalid Elamin Artist in Residence at the ZKM Video Studio
HOSTED BY: ZKM - Center for Art and Media
Maybe the sky is really green, and we’re just colourblind? (A crash course in reclaiming storytelling & belonging)
A MASTERCLASS AND WORKSHOP WITH JOHAN GRIMONPREZ
“Who owns our imagination in a world of existential vertigo where truth has become a shipwrecked refugee? Is it not the storyteller who can contain contradictions, who can slip between the languages we have been given and who can become a time-traveller of the imagination?”.
These questions will be the starting point of Johan Grimonprez’s masterclass to affectively assess what true colour the sky is. Grimonprez is known for his films between art and cinema, which mix fiction and documentary through a collage-like, archival approach and weaves new narratives pathways and stories, emphasizing a multiplicity of realities. His practice examines themes such as propaganda, the role of mass media, global power dynamics, and the nature of storytelling questioning the reliability of history and the ways narratives are constructed in the digital and television age. His work forms overall an acute and an indispensable criticism of contemporary media manipulation and of mainstream’s consensus about History.
His famous Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997), explores the history of airplane hijackings using found footage, news broadcasts, and literary references, while Double Take (2009), blends Alfred Hitchcock clips, Cold War paranoia, and doppelgänger narratives to comment on media manipulation and fear politics. His most recent documentary: Soundtrack for a Coup d’Etat (2024) which has been nominated for an Oscar this year, explores the Cold War episode that led American musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the murder of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. This three-day masterclass is organised in parallel of a retrospective of his work which opens on June 6th 2025 at ZKM.
https://johangrimonprez.be/wp-bio/ https://johangrimonprez.be/main/home.html
Contact to register:
Professor Hugonnier’s Hiwi’s Hyeonju Lee: hlee(at)hfg-karlsruhe.de
Maximum 35 participants
Please register before April 28th
Dates and time: June 16, 17, 18, 2025 / 10am-5pm
Location: On June 16 and 17 @ ZKM Useum On June 18 @ ZKM Medial Lounge
Course credit: Workshop-Nachweis Medienkunst
