Short bio:
Mathijs Stegink is co-owner of events and animation studio Reanimation.nl in Amsterdam and Cardboarders.com. He is also a programmer of the peripheral / side-programs at the best festivals in the Netherlands: Lowlands Festival and KLIK! Animation Festival. These projects are aimed at the combination of arts, playfullness and crowd-creation. Animation, in all it’s shapes and forms, is always the inspiration for his work. Some of his latest productions include puppetry, 3d animation, videomapping, interactive installations, festival television, event design and giant cardboard sculptures and environments. Also he teaches at the Willem de Kooning art academie in the departments illustration and animation.
“Personally I love absurdity, quirkiness and the freshness of amateurism. Creation comes from innocent pleasure of making and working together with a feeling of having nothing to loose. This childlike state is something that I want to recreate in my projects. Art for me is an action sport, you play it together and you need to get involved to really enjoy it. Artists are people who create situations that encourage dialogue, experiment, expression and awareness of what is going on in and around you”
“My work often tries to engage the audience in participating, experimenting and explore their own and each others creativity. I try to organize events where people get the possibility to get to know each other by using their hands and work together on a creative project. It doesn’t matter if these people are creative professionals or amateurs.”
“I love the source of the word animation: bringing something to life. That’s why I gravitate towards stuff like videomapping, stopmotion installations etc. in which animation finds it’s place outside the screen. Not only do you make an animation: the animation makes the thing it’s projected on come alive.”