Mind-body-problemMind-body-problem

This July-August series of The One Minutes is a collaboration with Maastricht Institute of Arts (the Netherlands). The 22 selected videos were sent in from Belgium, Benin, France, Germany, Greece, Kurdistan, Netherlands, Morocco, Pakistan, Senegal, Spain and United Kingdom. Breure & Van Hulzen did a workshop with students of the Maastricht Institute of Arts, and students of RHoK academie in Etterbeek, Brussels (Belgium) also produced videos.

Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen say: "The mind-body-problem is a question one runs into almost inevitably when working with figurative sculpture. How can matter ever come to life? It is an age-old question in itself that inspired the medieval Arabic novel by Ibn Tufayl in which a boy growing up on a deserted island dissects the dead deer that raised him, looking at the intestines, the lungs, the heart, the brain, in a search of the part that made her alive. It seemed to us a question worth asking our colleagues, our fellow filmmakers and artists, and one that evoked many counter-questions, such as:

Would you like to be cremated or buried? Does a fly have thoughts? Can I see what someone else sees? Is the cat in the box alive or not? If the soul inhabits a body, could a spirit inhabit a sculpture? What is the difference between a video of a person and their mirror image? Is a fight with an umbrella ever a spiritual struggle? And why is it so hard to say goodbye?"

Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen are cousins who collaborate on the production of videos and performances focusing on human behaviour, its encoded structures and the influence of time and place on the relationships between people. Theatre has been an important factor in their work from the very start. They studied at Rijksakademie voor beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam in 2017 where they began making sculptures - assemblages in the form of human figures.

Heidi Vogels, Elle Burchill, Thierry Oussou, Sabine Mooibroek, Elisabeth Molin, Michelle Son, Kani Marouf, Vincent Verhoef, Natasha Papadopoulou, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec, Denise Kehoe, Emma van der Put, Peter Ewig, Christine Moldrickx, Raluca Moldoveanu, Bas Schevers, Ben Rivers, Antonis Pittas, Daouda Dia, Iqra Tanveer, Paulien Oltheten, and Hamza Halloubi.

Mind-body-problem is a collaboration with Maastricht Institute of Arts and was made possible by Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, BNG Cultuurfonds and Mondriaan Fund.

The One Minutes Foundation produces and distributes one-minute videos from an artistic point of view, offering an international stage for people to create, engage and connect. The One Minutes is active at the forefront of international contemporary art, as well as in education and welfare. It has exhibited at venues including Power Station of Art in Shanghai, National Gallery of Iceland in Reykjavík and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Every two months, The One Minutes Foundation puts out a new series of 60-second films that investigate how we perceive and engage with the moving image. Museums and cultural organisations around the world subscribe to the series.

The One Minutes Series for September-October is curated by singer, artist and human rights activist Manuwi C Tokai on the occasion of the exhibition Temporary House of Home at Het Nieuwe Instituut. Manuwi C Tokai invites everyone to submit a one-minute video in response to the question: Akarani bono awowa? (Where is the place where you see the sun rise and set?) This is the Kali'na way of asking: Where are you from? Where is your home?

Send in your videos and take part in the project!