Isabell Spengler

Isabell Spengler is a film and video artist from Berlin. In her films, video installations and live- film-performances, she analyzes and mediates divergent constructions of realities, imaginary worlds and their representation. Working with opulent, self-designed costumes, drawings, texts, model making and kinetic sculptures, game instructions and performance scores, camera choreographies and structural editing concepts, Spengler designs fantastic worlds and sets up experiments, in which utopian and dystopian visions of the future are examined in artistic dialogues.
In collaborations with other artists, especially from the fields of dance/choreography, performance and music, Spengler invents new forms of expanded cinema. She is a founding member of the feminist artist collective MATERNAL FANTASIES (founded in 2018). Her work has been presented in exhibitions, festivals and cinemas worldwide since 1998, e.g. at the Berlinale (2007, 2009, 2010 and 2012), MOCA Los Angeles 2020 and Videonale.19 at Kunstmuseum Bonn 2023. For her video installation VOICE ELEVATOR (2021) she received the Bremen Award for Video Art. Spengler studied with VALIE EXPORT and Heinz Emigholz at the Berlin University of the Arts and at the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles (MFA Film/Video). As a visiting professor and as a faculty member she taught at various art colleges and universities in Europe and North America, including at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen (2022) and at the University of the Arts in Berlin (2004-2014).