Van Sowerwine
ISEA Bio(s) Available:
ISEA2024
Isobel Knowles and Van Sowerwine create technologically adventurous, elaborately detailed animated films, XR and immersive installations. Their practice centres around using animation to speak to an audience’s imagination directly, exposing unexpected emotional responses. Their immersive work aims to bridge the gap between on-screen and off-screen reality, disrupting normal perception to create significant narrative engagement.
Their 2022 augmented reality stop-motion animation ‘Night Creatures’ was created for the 2022 Melbourne International Film Festival as the inaugural MIFF XR commission. ‘Night Creatures’ had its international premiere at the 2023 International Film Festival Rotterdam. In 2021 they exhibited ‘Can’t do without you’ at the Monash Gallery of Art, blending three-dimensional miniatures, photography and animation to explore the psychological impact of lockdown in Melbourne.
In 2019 they created ‘Take Me With You’, a retrospective of works from 2004-2019 at Artspace at Realm, Ringwood. The showcase of this exhibition was ‘Passenger’ (2019), their 360 VR stop-motion installation. ‘Passenger’ had its international premiere in competition at the 76th Venice International Film Festival and won the Virtual Reality Award – Best Film at the 60th Thessaloniki International Film Festival.
Their films have been screened at film festivals across the world including at Cannes (where they were awarded a Special Mention), Chicago and Sundance. Their installations have been exhibited nationally and internationally including at the ICA, London, at the Seoul New Media Biennale and at the Art Gallery of NSW. Their installation ‘You Were In My Dream’ won the 2010 Premier of Queensland’s National New Media Art Award. Their 2011 interactive installation, ‘It’s a jungle in here’, won an Award of Distinction (Interactive Arts) at the 2012 Prix Ars Electronica.
ISEA2013
Isobel Knowles & Van Sowerwine (AU) have collaborated since 2001 on stop-motion animation in films and interactive installations. It’s a jungle in here premiered at the 2011 Melbourne Festival and won an Award of Distinction for Interactive Arts, Prix Ars Electronica 2012. Their 2010 installation You Were In My Dream won the 2010 Premier of Queensland’s National New Media Art Award and toured nationally with Experimenta and internationally with Asialink throughout 2010-12. They have exhibited both nationally and also internationally, and their short animation Clara won a Special Distinction at Cannes Film Festival (2004) and a Golden Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival.
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Last Known Location:
- Australia
