Jessica Sarah Rinland

2017 Schnitzer prize awardee, Jessica Sarah Rinland investigates and unifies opposing themes, interweaving original and found material, highlighting the incongruity of factual accounts, or presenting fiction in documentary form. Her films, sculptures, installations and books explore the fluctuation of knowledge: how facts, and the way they are disseminated, develop and change over time, and how this affects human’s relationship with or within nature, taxonomy, and human characterization.

Natural history and science are reoccurring themes with her work, as well as the use of analogue formats, specifically 16mm film. The materiality of celluloid which includes the process of capturing and developing, creates an important parallel to the hands on, chemical and micro-precision of a scientist’s work, with whom she often collaborates.  

She is currently interested in connections between ecological and museological conservation, specifically how artifacts that contain organic materials are obtained, restored and exhibited.

Jessica has exhibited work in galleries, cinemas, film festivals and universities internationally including New York Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, Rotterdam, Oberhausen, Edinburgh International Film Festival and Bloomberg New Contemporaries. She has received grants from Arts Council England, Wellcome Trust, Elephant Trust and elsewhere. Residencies include the MacDowell Colony, Kingston University, Locarno Academy and Berlinale Talents.