I am deeply honoured and humbled to receive the Best Video Art Award at the Asolo Art Film Festival in Italy—one of the world’s oldest and most respected festivals dedicated to art and cinema and a detachment from Venice Biennale. This recognition echoes far beyond me. To have my work recognised by an organisation that has awarded artists such as Andrei Tarkovsky, Aleksandr Sokurov, and Ingrid Bergman is both surreal and profoundly meaningful. My short film Areas of Search confronts femicide—a subject that carries unbearable weight, urgency, and silence. I accept this award with profound gratitude to the jury and especially in solidarity with the Mexican women who have shared their stories and experiences in the brutality of femicide. This work belongs to them. Thank you to the festival for seeing the value in art as a tool for witnessing, remembrance, and resistance. May this recognition not only honour artistic vision, but also amplify the voices that are too often unheard.
Thank you to these Italian publications for writing about the films awarded at the Asolo Art Film Festival: Cinema Italiano, Treviso Today, Sipario, and Federazione Relazioni Pubbliche Italiana.
“In Helen Blejerman’s work, Areas of Search, images (from Google Earth) of a Mexico seemingly emptied of human presence flow like a visual carpet, forming the backdrop to the voice (the artist herself) of a soul searching for its remains, thus representing a doubly unreal world. The estrangement is heightened by the water flowing backwards, almost expressing a longing to return to time, to life. The theme of loss, both personal and collective, permeates the work, as does the gaze upon the landscape. For these reasons and the lyricism of its composition, it was awarded the prize for the best video artwork.” Enrico Tomaselli, member of the jury—from the Festival’s catalogue.
for the exhibition When Space Becomes the Screen.
A review by Sean Williams for a-n.
An interview by Ghada Habib for Corridor8.
A review by Vivi Kallinikou for ArtRabbit.
Culture and Creativity Research Institute
THE PRAYER: REANIMATING THE SOIL ABOVE DEATH.
Helen Blejerman in performance—Still from video documentation.
Credit Peter Martin.
S1 ARTSPACE, Project Space (March 2023).
Click here for the artist profile video
EXHIBITION: PROJECTION AS MATERIAL – WHEN SPACE BECOMES THE SCREEN.
S1 ARTSPACE, JUNE 2022.
Artists: Helen Blejerman, Cathy Soreny, Marika Grasso, Max Munday, Timothy Machin, Jackie Leaver, Roland van Dierendonck.
Curated by Lee Cavalier, former curator at TATE Modern (Feb – March 2021).
The complete series Women Artists Under the Nazi Regime was included in the special edition of the Literature and Belief journal edited by Eva Mitchell Distinguished Professor Victoria Aarons from Trinity University, (2021).
PARIS, FRANCE
My experimental graphic novel was published in French by Presque Lune Éditions.
Lulu la Sensationnelle in Best Graphic Novels of 2019
COMFOR network – academic Dr. Veronique Sina, University of Cologne, Germany.
“A story told with great economy and poetry… a faceless silent movie of a graphic novel.”
Broken Frontier, May 2019. Full review by Jenny Robins, here.
“A book of remarkable sensitivity.”
Planetebd.com 25 Feb 2015. Full review by Sarah Dehove, here.
“Lulu la sensationnelle is a gem. Intelligent, psychological, suffused with poetry.”
First page of BODOI. 25 Feb 2015. Full review by Laurence Le Saux, here.
“Poetic writing.”
Médiathèque de Deux-Sèvres. Full review by Mireille, MDDS here
“Un livre très surprenant.”
A radio review that starts at 1.24.00 min- La Radio JET FM de Nantes, Nov 2014.
“A graphic elixir where time stops.”
Mes Premières Lectures. Review by Nelly Olson.
“A particularly moving book!”
Canal BD, Oct/Nov 2014. Full text here.
“Une histoire émouvante et poétique qui aborde avec délicatesse la maladie mentale et ses conséquences sur la vie familiale.”
Dbd Magazine, Dec 2014/Jan 2015. Full text here.
The Soil Where Women (Dis) Appear is in exhibition at the Old Gallery, Newcastle University, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, funded by the Institute for Creative Arts Practice, after the presentation for the Beastly Landscapes symposium (2021).
My full work The Island was included in the Journal Route 57 issue 16, published by the Centre for Poetry and Poetics and the Creative Writing at Sheffield University (2020).
Who Lies Beneath – a production by Helen Blejerman and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Sheffield University, was broadcast by the Being Human, the Festival of the Humanities. Part of the collaborative project Soil and Soul, by the Arts and Humanities Knowledge Exchange, Sheffield University.
“Does a Dog know Art can Disappear?” was a commission for The Guardian. A graphic narrative where I tell the story of a group of young European surrealists, such as Buñuel, Breton, Varo, and Carrington, who came to Mexico City in the middle of the 20th century. And how around politics, poverty and the discovery of the unconscious mind, “they planted their artworks in the land, and left them as they left their ghosts, spells that lasted forever.” The full work can be seen here.
I read an extract of my piece ‘Synesthesia’ from the anthology edited by Emma Bolland and published by Dostoyevsky Wannabe. The launch of the book was part of Off the Shelf Festival.
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The Beautiful Bug in my Head is the review I wrote for Berfrois, of the award-winning book Graphic Details: Jewish Women’s Confessional Comics in Essays and Interviews. Edited by Sarah Lightman, McFarland, 316 pp. Read here..
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My work was featured in Art Monthly in Michael Corris article The Economy of Art. You can see it here.
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BASTED, SWEDEN
I was in Bastad, Sweden, talking for Tynet 50+, about Creativity, for a project by the European Commission.
Helen Blejerman 