Melanie Bonajo


Melanie Bonaj is a Dutch artist working with film, performance, installations, music, event organizing, and photography. Her works address themes of eroding intimacy and isolation in an increasingly sterile, technological world. Her experimental documentaries often explore communities living or working on the margins of society, either through illegal means or cultural exclusion. Her work has been exhibited and screened internationally, from the Tate Modern, MoMA PS1, to De Appel Arts Centre and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam to the Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, the Kunsthalle Basel, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the Berlinale, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Treefort Film Fest.

Notable work

Bonajo's film series Night Soil is a trio of experimental documentaries about modern approaches to nature and the cultural implications of acting against capitalism. The first in the series, Night Soil - Fake Paradise, is about psychedelic plant medication and human-plant conversations. The sequel, Night Soil - Economy of Love presents an alternative ethical model for sex-work healing and activism. The third film, "Night Soil - Nocturnal Gardening" questions the role of radical agriculture in a world of dwindling natural resources and disconnection to nature. Her other recent film, which premiered at Hacking Habitat, Progress vs. Regress is the first in a trilogy that questions how technology has evolved through the eyes of elderly people in the Netherlands. This film was also selected for IDFA 2016

Music and Performance

Bonajo has performed internationally at venues such as Paradiso in Amsterdam, Baby's Alright in NYC and Collège des Bernardins in Paris alongside artists such as Kembra Pfahler and Bianca Cassidy of CocoRosie. Her band, ZaZaZoZo, is a music project with Joseph Marzolla known for its tribal pop sound and animalistic influence. All their music is produced by Bonajo's brother Tommie Bonajo at his Tomster studios. They released their debut album INUA in spring 2013 by Tsunami Addiction. Their latest single and video, Woke up as a Wolf, was released in 2014.

Feminism

Bonajo's Furniture Bondage photography series pairs domestic tools with the naked female body. In 2012 she initiated Genital International, a feminist performance collective event about participation and equality. Bonajo's photography series and music video work Pee on Presidents is often tied to the recent anti-censorship and sex-positive branches of the feminist movement for its endorsement of female body agency in public environments, resulting in a provocation of censorship laws in the media.

Current

Bonajo released her first major publication since Spheres in December 2015 Matrix Botanica Nonhuman Persons designed by Experimental Jetset, which explores the ways we experience nature through representations on the internet, via YouTube and blogs posting adorable, funny or adorably sad amateur videos and photographs of nonhuman animals. This publication delves into the ways nature education has changed over the years and integrates the voices of animal behavior scientists rather than a National Geographic perspective.
As of March 2016, Bonajo, along with curators Maaike Gouwenberg and Emma Panza, was shortlisted to represent The Netherlands at the 57th Venice Biennale.
“The method of Bonajo is representative of practices of a younger generation that is based on collectivity and exchange.”
Her third Night Soil film to complete the trilogy premiered at the Tate Modern's Artists' Cinema in London September 7, 2016. It will then be showcased at Foam museum in Amsterdam starting September 15, 2016 as part of the Next Level exhibition.
In April 2017, Melanie Bonajo has been selected and shortlisted for the Prix de Rome Visual Arts 2017.

Selected works

Filmography