Persona is an art collective, consisting of Pieter Desmet, Steffi Mennen and Jonathan De Maeyer, that was founded in January 2019. Steffi and Pieter met each other at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp (ARTESIS) where they both studied contemporary dance. After they graduated they decided to put their artistic views together and create Persona. In 2020 Jonathan joined the platform after video- and photographing Make Me Think Us, the first work created within Persona.

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Persona is a fusion between performative and audiovisual art. The visual language navigates in between the realistic, the cinematic and the distorted. By putting these visions next to each other we create an alien landscape that feels like a mirror for the audience.

Persona researches the various ways an identity can manifest, from the internal subconscious entity to the external mask one presents to the world. And the duality between all these different personas within one being.

Can we showcase the intimacy of the process of an ever developing identity?

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 Steffi Mennen (1996, the Netherlands) graduated in  June 2017. Next to her work for Persona she is  working internationally as a freelance dancer. She is  working or has worked with a.o. Renan  Martins de  Oliveira, Marcelo Moncada, Company Oliveira  & Bachtler, Cosmin Manolescu and Tuur Marinus.  She also teaches ballet at Retina Dance Company in  Antwerp and at MUDA School of Arts in Ghent.

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 Pieter Desmet (1996, Belgium) graduated in June 2018.  Pieter is a freelance dancer working for Wim Vandekeybus / Ultima Vez and Aïda Gabriëls. In the past he has worked for a.o. Ricardo  Ambrózio, Lotte Boonstra, De Veerman and BRONKS.

Next to this he also teaches contemporary dance in professional dance schools in Europe such as the Kunsthumaniora Brussel, the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp and Performact in Torres Vedras, Portugal.

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 Jonathan De Maeyer (1994, Belgium) lives and works  in Ghent. He obtained a master in the Fine Arts  Photography at LUCA School of Arts, Ghent. He is working on both autonomous projects and on projects in  collaboration with other artists and musicians.  Jonathan is working on a digital and analogue image  archive (photo and video) that forms the basis for  associatively assembled series that try to translate  the fascination for the unknown landscape.

 

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