Marieke van der Burg (1998, NL)

Everyone has difficult moments in life. Yet there is still a taboo on expressing emotions and feelings when things are tough. With her interactive installation ‘Self Spot’, media artist Marieke van der Burg brings to life a shadow world that puts human and recognizable, but often unspoken emotions literally and figuratively in the spotlight. Visitors can shine a flashlight on the objects in a kitchen to bring out their shadows. Each object has its own characteristics, emotions, and feelings, just like us.

Marieke van der Burg uses her own experiences and the learning process that comes with them as inspiration for her work. Using animations, projection techniques and interactive elements, she makes unique creations that playfully draw attention to emotionally charged subjects. With her graduation project ‘Self Spot’ at the Image & Media Technology program at HKU she won the HKU Awards 2022.