Undine Sommer



“The quotidian is my raw material, its muted possibilities my driving force. By weaving choreography and imaginary narratives into fact-based stories, my work dramatizes the gestures of memory. I aim to offer a physical perspective on politics, as somatic remembrances provide a site for memory outside of spectacle and bring to question the duration of the event. Portraying bodies entangled in history and conflict, I seek to preserve and articulate the confounding and agitating effect these histories have upon us.”


︎︎︎ Get in contact with Undine





Undine Sommer (born in 1989 in Konstanz) is a video artist and writer based in Berlin and Brandenburg, Germany. She received her MFA in Studio Arts/Film Production from Concordia University, Tiohtià:ke/Montreal in 2020 and her Diplom in Fine Arts from HBK Braunschweig in 2015. Screenings and exhibitions include: 2020 s(k)now solo exhibition at Sapporo Tenjinyama Art Studio, 36th Kassel Dokfest, Tsushima Art Fantasia 2018 & 2019, Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival 2019, Ignition at Leonard & Bina Art Gallery Tiohtià:ke/Montreal, 26th Images Festival Toronto, MUBI, and Goethe Institute traveling exhibition „Your Skin Makes Me Cry,“ among others. She is a fellow 2020 of the Young Academy in the section of visual arts at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin.


Teaching and Video Work

Undine is available to give lectures and workshops and to collaborate on video work. Her teaching revolves around the relationship of text to image, creative writing and writing for image practices, video art, as well as scent and memory (Archive of the Scents Or How to Smell a Memory —Writing/Drawing/Ceramics/Sound— in collaboration with Fumiko Kikuchi.) You can also contact her for concept and screen writing, editing, video installations and stage projections.

Publications

Essay. “Weird, How We Just Trust the Road,” Where were we, you and I? Akademie der Künste Berlin. Berlin, 2021.

Short Story. “Bare Fruit,” #10: Conflict. Girls to the Front. Warsaw, 2021.

Short Stories. “Today I Sit at Home,” Akademie der Künste Berlin. Berlin, 2020.


Education

2020 
MFA Studio Arts/Film Production, Concordia University, Tiohtià:ke/Montreal

2015
Diplom in Fine Arts, focus on Video Art (class of Prof. Candice Breitz), degree with honors, HBK Braunschweig


Stipendien/ Auszeichnung

2020
Fellow of the YOUNG ACADEMY in the section of visual arts at the Akademie der Künste Berlin

2013 –18
Fellow of the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes e.V.)


Ausstellungen/ Screenings / Residencies (selection)

2020
Akademie der Künste (Berlin) & Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Artist-in-Residence Program, Berlin (DE)
Sapporo Tenjinyama Art Studio, Exhibition and Artist-in-Residence Program (January – March), Sapporo, (JP)


2019
36. Kasseler Dokfest, Screening, Kassel (DE)
Tsushima Art Fantasia, Ausstellung und Artist-in-Residence Program, Naiin (JP)
Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Screening, Hawick (UK)


2018
Tsushima Art Fantasia, Exhibition and Artist-in-Residence Program, Naiin (JP)
ZK/U- Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik Berlin, Artist-in-Residence Program Berlin (DE)
Maureen III, Exhibition Darling Foundry, Montreal (CA)
IGNITION, Exhibition Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montreal (CA)

2015
/si:n/ Festival für Videokunst und Performance, French German Culture Center Ramallah (PO)
Tokoname Field Trip, Artist-in-Residence Program Tokoname (JP)
New German Video Art, Exhibition Alternative Space LOOP, Seoul (KR)

2014
28. Internationales Filmfest Braunschweig, Screening (DE)
Your Skin Makes Me Cry, Traveling Exhibition and DVD of the Goethe Institut (DE): Goethe Institut Shanghai (CN), Bukarest (RO), Washington (USA), San Francisco (USA), Johannesburg (ZA), Chicago (USA), Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei (TW)

2013
MUBI, Streaming Video (WWW)
26th Images Festival, Screening Toronto, (CA)