Demelza Kooij is a filmmaker, visual artist, and researcher born in The Netherlands, now based in Scotland. Her practice and research interests relate to depicting Other worlds: interactions between animals, ecologies of the sea, land, sky and exchanges in-between; the hidden beauty in everyday life, and women’s histories.
Highlights are winning the Jury Prize at Ann Arbor Film Festival for Wolves From Above, and screenings at e.g. Festival Du Nouveau Cinéma Montréal, Full Frame, Hamptons IFF, Edinburgh IFF, as well as exhibiting at WRO Media Art Biennale Poland, Finnish Museum of Photography Helsinki, FACT Liverpool, and The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul [MMCA].
She completed a PhD in Film Production: Empathising with Animals: Non-Human Subjectivity in Documentary Film. Additionally, she has a background in Philosophy (MA) and Archaeology (BA Hons), which remain relevant to her practice.
During the residency at Il Gattopardo, Demelza will explore the role of place and happenstance in art-making and storytelling. Beginning with walking as a point of departure, she engages with her surroundings through drawing, painting, sculpture, video, photography, and writing, which will culminate in an installation.
Unknown Error
(Demelza Kooij & Oetzi, 2025)
A cascade of digital glitches inspires Demelza to transform technological failure into a video installation. The result is an homage to ten unique errors, functioning simultaneously as a celebration of chance and a eulogy for the loss of the physical world.
The visuals are paired with the experimental electronic music of Oetzi whose practice of deliberate sonic degradation mirrors the work’s visual glitches.
