Eli Cortiñas, born 1979 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, lives and works in Berlin. A large part of Cortiñas’ practice revolves around the idea of challenging cinematic memory through analysing and re-editing pre-existing footage, or her own material. Disrupting and re-structuring narrative flows, she creates shifts of meaning (No Place Like Home, 2006). This method of ‘editing as writing’ generates a mixed feeling of both identification and alienation. In her videos, as well as in her collages and object arrangements, Eli Cortiñas creates an ambiguous and affirmative transparency – unveiling the role plays of a generation vaunted in the media as ‘lost’.

Eli Cortiñas studied at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and at the European Film College Ebeltoft, Denmark. Selected solo exhibitions include Always bite the hand that feeds you at Convent Space for Contemporary Art, Ghent (2018), Remixers never die, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius (2018), Five Easy Pieces and Some Words of Wisdom at Soy Capitán, Berlin (2015), Awkward Studies and a Decent Take on Serious Matters at Rokeby, London (2013), Love Is Worn Around The Neck, curated by Veit Loers at Kunstraum Innsbruck (2012). Her work was part of several group exhibitions, such as Büro komplex – Die Kunst der Artothek im politischen Raum, Kunsthaus NRW, Aachen (2018), Film Footage Fotografie. Bildnerische Augenblicke mit filmischen Bezügen, Museum for Photographie Braunschweig (2017), 10 Emerging Artists. Contemporary Experimental Films and Video Art from Germany, Goethe Institute Canada (2017), Double Feature, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2017), Les Rencontres Internationales at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2011). Eli Cortiñas has been awarded with grants and fellowships from Berliner Senat (2017), Villa Sträuli (2017), Villa Massimo Rome (2014), Marianna Ingenwerth-Stiftung grant for residency at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo La Regenta (2013), Shortlist Award for young Film Art, Freunde der Neuen Nationalgalerie und Deutscher Filmakademie (2011), et al.

Biography