Silvia Martes

What to expect

Silvia Martes (Eindhoven, 1985) is an artist and filmmaker showing four new works in spring 2027 in her largest solo exhibition to date, … has other plans for us.

The exhibition is a personal filmic research into loss and death, grief, mourning, memory, reincarnation and the afterlife.

The idea began in 2024 during a visit to her grandmother with dementia in Curaçao, where Martes documented clear and confused moments.

A talk with her mother in the Netherlands about saying goodbye from afar led to research into dying and mourning.

Martes links family history, origins, immigration and colonial history with large cultural differences and rituals around death.

• Traveled to Ghana with brother Jimmy
• Jimmy worked as production assistant
• Ghana was a source of enslaved people
• Many were shipped to Curaçao and Suriname
• Studied Ga cosmology and Accra coffin makers
• Coffins shaped like peppers, beer bottles, lions, fish
• Coffins guide the deceased to the ancestors
• Third film is set at Fort Elmina
• Former slave fort on Ghana's coast
• Dutch traders shipped enslaved people from there
• Ancestral spirits seem to linger there
• Fourth fictional film focuses on rebirth
• Recorded in her Amsterdam studio
• She confronts earlier versions of herself
• First shown as spatial installations
• Combined with sculptural works
• Documentary approach uses travel recordings and improvisation
• Known for alienating stories on surreal sets
• Designs film sets with great precision
• Makes intuitive image collages, not chronological stories
• Scenes are loosely woven and sometimes absurdist