Hito Steyerl

(b. 1966) is a Berlin-based artist and theorist.

She studied Cinematography and Documentary Filmmaking at the Academy of Visual Arts in Tokyo and the Munich Academy of Television and Film. Steyerl also holds a PhD in Philosophy. As an artist she works mainly with documentary film and video. Her main interests are concepts of national identity, globalisation, racism, chauvinism and urban issues. As a theorist she is rooted in the tradition of feminism and postcolonial critique. Hito Steyerl is a professor at the University of the Arts in Berlin and has been visiting professor at several institutions including Goldsmiths and Bard College. Her solo shows were presented at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (2009), Moderna Museet in Stockholm (2008) and Kunsthalle Winterthur (Red Alert, 2008). She took part in group shows like Vectors of the Possible (Basis voor Actuele Kunst, Utrecht, 2010), Alles anders? (Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, 2010) and various international exhibitions (including documenta 12, 5th Manifesta and 3rd Berlin Biennale).

Auditorium Moscow will present a screening and discussion of Hito Steyerl’s earlier film Die leere Mitte (1998), a meditation on the conditions of gentrification and globalization of the historically dense, evacuated noman’s land between East and West Berlin at Potsdamer Platz, and how this story resonates with the situation in Moscow today.