Short fictions of Survival

Short fictions of Survival brings together three experimental stop-motion films produced between 1996 and 2001 through different analog animation techniques and narrative approaches.

Developed over several years, the films function as early autobiographical explorations in which emotional experiences, bodily anxieties, fears, and desires are translated into playful and fragile visual worlds. Rather than constructing linear stories, the works unfold as symbolic journeys populated by drifting figures, unstable bodies, dreamlike spaces, and situations of vulnerability.

Working with 16mm film, shadow animation, paper dolls, charcoal drawing, and puppet animation, the artist approaches animation as a handmade process of emotional transformation, where pain, humour, and imagination coexist.

The cycle constitutes an early cinematic laboratory in which themes that later become central to the artist’s practice already emerge: autobiographical fragmentation, emotional projection, bodily instability, and the use of fiction and symbolic narration as forms of lived translation.

Films within the cycle

Maria del Aire - a slow and dreamlike journey following an angel-like figure moving through realistic and surreal environments. Developed through 16mm shadow animation

FleischBeSchau - a rhythmic and grotesque dance around beauty, eating disorders, and bodily perception, created through 16mm and paper doll animation

Corre - the story of a hunted human figure crossing a forest landscape, combining charcoal drawing animation and 3D puppet animation on 16mm film

Together, the films construct a fragile and symbolic emotional universe oscillating between innocence, discomfort, playfulness, and fear.

The films can be viewed online upon request. Please contact the artist for password access

Process

The films were developed through long-term experimentation with handmade animation techniques, analog film processes, and autobiographical storytelling.

Using 16mm film as a material and tactile medium, the artist combined shadow animation, paper cut-outs, charcoal drawing, and puppet animation to construct emotionally charged narratives through frame-by-frame transformation.

Rather than approaching animation as technical perfection, the works embrace fragility, imperfection, and manual labour as expressive elements. The process became a way of translating difficult emotional states into symbolic movement, visual rhythm, and fictional worlds.

Through these experiments, animation emerges not only as cinematic technique, but as an intimate method for processing memory, vulnerability, and emotional experience.

Forms Three 16mm stop-motion films — experimental handmade animations combining shadow animation, paper dolls, charcoal drawing, and puppet techniques Analog film projections — cinematic presentations emphasizing the tactile and material qualities of 16mm film

The works operate together as a fragmented autobiographical constellation in which animation becomes a form of emotional narration and symbolic self-construction.

Context

Produced between 1996 and 2001, the films belong to the earliest phase of the artist’s practice and precede later investigations into collage, live animation, performance, and relational methodologies.

Although formally distant from the artist’s contemporary socially engaged projects, the cycle already introduces many recurring concerns within the practice: emotional translation, autobiographical fragmentation, symbolic narration, and the transformation of lived experience through fictional and visual structures.

Credits

Concept, animation and direction: Christina Schultz Sound: Lorenz Gneist and Manuela Rzyki Light: Natalia Gima

Maria del Aire