Myriam Van Imschoot BE

Myriam Van Imschoot is based in Brussels where she works across media as performance and video. She has a background in dance and literature. From 2007 her work as a sound and performance artist has been presented in Europe, Australia and the United States. In a first cycle of works (2007-2011) Myriam Van Imschoot used archives as her medium. The duet Pick-up Voices 2007 with Christine De Smedt, Fax Film (2008) and the juke box sound installation Black Box 2009 showed an interest in the performative potential of archival documents and the construction of alternative historiographies through them. Her solo Living Archive 2011 was a personal testimony of what could be any 'girl living next-door with a passion for mixed tapes'. The interest in sonic archival materials led Myriam Van Imschoot from 2010 to engage her own vocal and gesturing body, as it is inhabited by multiform sonic realities of the past and present. Voice became a main vehicle for performances that investigate techniques (internal) and their applications in urban, rural, theater spaces and various social constellations. Fascinated by phenomena of long-distance communication, she studied yodelling and made pieces that involve crying, waving and bird calls. Myriam Van Imschoot switches between works that are made in situ and those that can tour, between small occasion pieces or bigger productions, with an ongoing interest to explore and traverse contexts. In parallel to the performance work Van Imschoot develops a series of films that link with themes in the performance and installation work, like landscape, architecture, archive, folklore and broken voices. In Brussels she has been crucial in curating contexts for research and exchange amongst artists coming from different fields, for example, through the Voicelabs, Soirée Paroles and other events that she curated for the workplace Sarma, an organisation for discursive practice founded by her in 2001. After a sabbatical she founded with Oral Site a new branch within Sarma for multimodal artist publications on the net Oral Site (2012-now) based on new software Olga, especially designed for this purpose. In October 2015 Van Imschoot launched Volume SP, a compilation series for sound poetry. Upcoming in 2016 is an Online Gallery that she co-curates for one year with Kristien Van den Brande, including temporary and permanent contributions by artists. Through all these activities Van Imschoot occupies an idiosyncratic place in the larger art field. Her approach cuts through media, nurtured by her careful attention for overlooked gestures, phenomena and voices.