Nell Berger

Artdiscipline: Performance, installation art and work on paper

I was born and raised on the countryside at the border of Alkmaar. I grew up with five brothers and five sisters. My father had a horticultural business.  That gave me the feeling of space. Playing on the open land and exploring nature in a natural way. The crops were harvested three times a week. Al the vegetables have there own forms and were put in a order at the fields. I loved it to see them grow and see the changing of the plants.

As a child I was very active able to convert that into a training at the Amsterdam theater school. Dance expression and modern dance gave me the tools to transform my ideas spatially into performances. The orientation year at the Rietveld Academy gave me exactly the tools to further deepen my visual capacity.  My work consists of mixing different disciplines. I started this in the 1990s. My sense of theater and image come together in my installations and performances. Independent artist since 1994. Specialization: performance and installation art.

Motivation and vision from which I work.

I see the body as a place where certainty and uncertainty go hand in hand. The world is in constant change. It is the only constant factor. We humans often find changes unpleasant and difficult to deal with. 

I play with the fact of alienation, temptation, uncertainty and ingrained patterns. Throughout our lives, we make assumptions and base our thinking patterns on them. 

In my installations and performances I appeal to the flexible capacity of humans and challenge the public to participate in my work. From a safe and anecdotal context, one can stretch one's own limits if necessary. 

Yoga is an important component for me that manifests itself around my projects. Yoga gives time to investigate and explore on a personal level. My experience is that it is easier to make connections in the outside world, when you feel a connection with yourself. By surrendering to the repetitive exercises, there is room for the ritual nature and thinking patterns can be examined, adjusted or let go.

Exposities/performances

2021-June

Jumping - The Moving Landscape / exhibition at the Kunstverein of Solingen with Jan Pronk and Annegien Haselager

2019 Germany - Geldern
Artist in Residence /Chambre séparé 
At the invitation of Kunstkreis Geldern. Get 1 month to make a work in an old water tower. Without a plan and material I settled in Geldern. A Border area between the Netherlands and Germany. Many German girls also crossed the border here after the First World War, to work as a maidservant in the well-to-do bourgeoisie in the Netherlands. Much was demanded of them. Seduced or exploited by the lady or man of the house. The book by Barbara Henkes Heimat in Holland deepened my feeling about boundaries and when do you actually cross a boundary or what makes your own boundaries no longer respected or are not respected. With "Me To" in mind and my mother's childhood stories about her maids existence, I came to Chambre séparé.
 

2016/ 2019 Book Fluistergang
Published in November 2019 ISBN:9789083037103

Layout: Esther van der Weij

Text and drawings: Nell Berger

Printing: de Bij.

2018 1t/m 28 februari
Window exhibition in Koningsstraat AmsterdamI LOVE YOU Poem written on banners.

2018 February 10

Performance “Seelennot” Kunstmuseum Solingen, Germany. 

At the invitation of Sabine Smith in her exhibition Tastes like grapefruit. Seelennot, is about the inability to mourn or not express the grief of the bereaved or the survivors after the second world war. In this performance I went in search of giving voice to the pain that has settled in the body and has no longer been able to express itself. Voice, movement, dress from handkerchiefs and onions.

2015 - Weekend 17 - 18 october
Migration is a natural movement. "This is where I rest my head before I move on." Work in progress. in collaboration with Pols Potten as part of the project. 

More about my work:

www.nellberger.nl