Loop Symposium

Loop Symposium: Images that Move Us Forward. Commissioning, Producing, Exhibiting and Collecting Artists’ Cinema

Led by Filipa Ramos

Artists’ Cinema continues to escape definition and refuses to be pigeon-holed. It is an in-between creature that lives across the movie theatre and the exhibition space, that embraces and challenges the languages of cinema, that plays with genres and conventions, and that refuses to be reduced to be entertainment while not conforming to the rules of other art objects. 

Maybe it’s easier to think about what Artists’ Cinema does instead of continuing to try to define what it is. Without doubt it has created unforgettable moments of joy, memorable experiences of encounter, and unique feelings of wonder. Artists’ Cinema pushes us towards what is yet to come, leading art towards its transformation and rooting it in the reality and imaginary of our present-future. 

This year, Loop Barcelona will pursue its tradition of supporting artists’ cinema by hosting a two-day symposium focused on this topic. It will bring together artists, collectors, commissioners, curators, gallerists, programmers, producers, distributors and scholars to discuss important matters that concern Artists’ Cinema today and tomorrow, as to imagine the ways in which we can continue to help to create the Images that Move Us Forward.

We will bring together the greatest experts and artists’ cinema lovers and supporters—artists, collectors, commissioners, curators, gallerists, and programmers—to imagine the ways in which we can continue to support artists’ cinema with care and relevance. Panelists and moderators include: Gabriel Abrantes (Artist, Filmmaker), Guilherme Blanc (Batalha Centro de Cinema), Hoor Al-Qasimi (Sharjah Art Foundation), Julian Ross (Amsterdam Eye Filmmuseum), Kostas Stasinopoulos (Serpentine Gallery), Leonardo Bigazzi (Fondazione In Between Art Film), Lisa Long (Julia Stoschek Foundation), Paolo Moretti (Fondazione Prada), Sabel Gavaldon (MACBA), Sinazo Chiya (Stevenson Gallery) and Tarini Malik (John Akomfrah’s British Pavilion at 60th Venice Biennale).

©gerdastudio

Filipa Ramos, PhD, is a writer and curator. She is Lecturer at the Arts Institute of the HGK/FHNW, Basel. Her research focuses on how contemporary art engages with nature and ecology. Ramos has been curator of the Art Basel Film sector (2020-24) and a founding curator of the online artists’ cinema Vdrome (since 2013). Current projects include BESTIARI, the Catalan representation at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (2024) and the arts, humanities and science festival The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish (since 2018, with Lucia Pietroiusti). In 2024, she curated Songs for the Changing Seasons for the 1. Klima Biennale Wien (with Lucia Pietroiusti) and in 2022, Persons Persone Personen, the 8th Biennale Gherdëina (with Lucia Pietroiusti). In 2021, she co-curated Bodies of Water, the 13th Shanghai Biennale (with Andrés Jaque, Lucia Pietroiusti, Marina Otero Verzier and Mi You). Ramos was Editor-in-Chief of e-flux criticism (2013-20), Associate Editor of Manifesta Journal (2009-11) and contributed for Documenta 13 (2012) and 14 (2017). She authored Lost and Found (Silvana Editoriale, 2009) and edited Animals (Whitechapel Gallery/MIT Press, 2016). Her upcoming book, The Artist as Ecologist, will be published by Lund Humphries in 2025.