Ben Russell (born in 1976, USA) is an itinerant media artist and curator whose films, installations, and performances foster a deep engagement with the history and semiotics of the moving image. Formal investigations of the historical and conceptual relationships between early cinema, visual anthropology, and structuralist filmmaking result in immersive experiences concerned at once with ritual, communal spectatorship and the pursuit of a “psychedelic ethnography.”
A 2008 Guggenheim Fellow and 2010 FIPRESCI award recipient for his feature film Let Each One Go Where He May, Ben began the Magic Lantern screening series in Providence, Rhode Island, was co-director of
the artist-run space Ben Russell in Chicago, IL, toured with film/ video/ performance programs world-wide and performed in a double-drum trio called BEAST. His recent exhibitions include: Arts sous influence, La
maison rouge, Paris, 2013; PhotoCairo 5, Townhouse Factory Space, Cairo, 2013; Uh Oh It’s Magic, ThreeWalls, Chicago, 2011; Trypps #7 (Badlands ), Wexner Center, Columbus, 2011; 12×12: Ben Russell, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2010. Past solo screenings include: Centre Georges Pompidou, Rotterdam Film Festival, RedCat, les Abattoirs, Viennale, CCCB and the Museum of Modern Art.
Ben Rivers studied Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art, initially in sculpture before moving into photography and super8 film. After his degree he taught himself 16mm filmmaking and hand processing.
His practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction. Often following and filming people who have in some way separated themselves from society, the raw film footage provides Rivers with a starting point for creating oblique narratives imagining alternative existences in marginal worlds.
He is the recipient of numerous prizes including: FIPRESCI International Critics Prize, 68th Venice Film Festival for his first feature film Two Years At Sea ; the inaugural Robert Gardner Film Award, 2012; the Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel 42, 2011; twice shortlisted for the Jarman Award, 2010/2012; Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists,
2010. Recent exhibitions include: Slow Action , Hepworth Wakefield, 2012; Sack Barrow, Hayward Gallery, London, 2011; Slow Action , Matt’s Gallery, London and Gallery TPW, Toronto, 2011; A World Rattled of Habit, A Foundation, Liverpool, 2009. Festival retrospectives include Courtisane
Festival; Pesaro International Film Festival; London Film Festival; Tirana Film Festival; Punto de Vista, Pamplona; Indielisboa and Milan Film Festival. In 1996 he co-founded Brighton Cinematheque which he then co-programmed through to its demise in 2006. He continues to programme on a peripatetic basis.
