Miriam Sentler
Miriam Sentler (b. 1994, DE, based in Rotterdam/Amsterdam, the Netherlands) is a visual artist and artistic researcher. She graduated cum laude from the University of Amsterdam (MA Artistic Research, 2020) and the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht (BFA Fine Arts, 2016) and received a certificate in Visual Anthropology from Goldsmiths, University of Arts (2017-2018). In 2020, she was awarded the Mondriaan Fund Stipendium for Emerging Artists. Sentler participated in international residencies and artistic research projects in the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Scotland, Norway and Belgium and exhibited her work in group exhibitions across Europe.
Sentler's work emphasizes the continuous changing of environments, focussing on the cultural and environmental legacy of (fossil fuel) industries and the modern era. In her work, she often deal with questions of belonging: a fish fossil travels back into the underwater-world of the old lignite pit wherein it was found (Descent into the Future, 2020), a statue of Janus, the Roman protection god of travelers, embarks on a new journey through the over-trafficked city center of Rome (Janus Walk, 2019) or a stone moans about its brutal abduction from the Italian Dolomites (Rock Monody, 2016). Sacrifice is a central topic in her practice, wherein she question who sacrifices for what and how this "exchange" manifests in different landscapes.
Through residencies and working periods, she looks for fitting mediums to highlight (dis)appearances in changing landscapes, exploring how storytelling, mythmaking, installations, and interventions can be used as methods to communicate and reflect upon severe environmental change. In the field, she collaborates with scientists and inhabitants next to always learning new skills affiliated with the landscape, thus embarking in a “correspondence” with human and non-human inhabitants. For example, she became a fisher and ceramist in order to replicate a fish fossil from a lignite pit for Descent into the Future (2020/2021), functioned as a hobby ornithologist in the endangered woods of the Hambacher Forst for the Chase (2020) and explored the Atlantic Ocean as a modern-day shark hunter for Cairban (2021).
