PARASOPHIA 京都国際現代芸術祭2015

Joost Conijn
b. 1971 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; based in Amsterdam
www.joostconijn.org

Works in exhibition
Hout auto [Wood car], 2002
Video, 31 min. 10 sec.
Filmed in Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Transnistria, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Italy, France, and the Netherlands

Vliegtuig [Airplane], 2000
Video, 28 min. 37 sec.
Filmed in the Netherlands and Morcco

Siddieqa, Firdaus, Abdallah, Soelayman, Moestafa, Hawwa and Dzoel-kifl, 2004
Video, 41 min. 42 sec.
Filmed in Amsterdam

Auto op dak [Car on roof], 1996
Video, 2 min. 3 sec.
Filmed in Amsterdam

C’est une Hek [This is a gate], 1997
Video, 20 min. 24 sec.
Filmed in the Netherlands and Morocco

See all installation views at higher resolution: www.flickr.com/photos/parasophia/sets/72157656876044665

Studied at Gerrit Rietvield Academie (1992–95) and Sandberg Instituut (1995–97) in the Netherlands. Seized by an urge to fly, Joost Conijn obtained a pilot license at the age of 27, and in 2000 made efforts to fly in the Sahara Desert in an aircraft he built by hand. In 2001–02, he traveled through 15 European countries, visiting Belgium, Germany, Moravia and other parts of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Transylvania and elsewhere in Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, and elsewhere, in a wooden car equipped with a charcoal-burning engine. In 2007 he bicycled across the mountainous Rif region of northern Morocco with two friends. Conijn documents these journeys in film, photo, and text form and presents them as creative works. He expresses his curiosity and adventurous impulses by building his own vehicles, rather than using readymade forms of transportation, and by making his way across national and cultural boundaries freely and spontaneously rather than sticking to a preordained plan. This approach encourages viewers to rethink our contemporary lifestyle of dependence on a range of existing systems: surely a perfect example of Parasophia. At Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015, there will be a comprehensive overview of his projects thus far through four video works projected on two screens.

• Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art