Manal Issa, Aïssa Maïga, and Isabel Sandoval in The Listening Takes. Photo: Daniel Kukla for Participant Inc
HOW WE FIND HER
I believe a biographical subject is not temporally or cohesively written, but a collective, cross-historical experience that moves through the bodies of both those who write it, and those who receive it.
OPENING, ARTIST TALK & RECEPTION
We 25 mar — 18:00
In the presence of the artist
Register here
REGULAR EXHIBITION HOURS
We - Th: 14:00 - 22:00
Fr- Su: 14:00 - 18:00
Mo - Tu: closed
OPENING HOURS during EASTER BREAK (Sa 04.04 > Su 19.04)
We - Fr: 14:00 - 18:00
Sa- Tu: closed
OPENING HOURS during BODY OF WORK (25.04 > 13.05)
Tu - Su: 14:00 - 18:00
Mo: closed
Sa 25.04: 14:00 - 23:00 (opening Body of Work)
Tu 28.04: 14:00 - 18:00 (symposium Body of Work)
CLOSED ON
Sa 04.04 (easter break)
Su 05.04 (easter break)
Sa 11.04 (easter break)
Su 12.04 (easter break)
Sa 18.04 (easter break)
Su 19.04 (easter break)
Th 14.05 (ascension day/public holiday)
GROUP VISITS
Group visits (in the form of a guided tour or with a short introduction) are possible outside the regular opening hours on weekdays. Please contact rondleiding@stuk.be for more information.
Through a lens-based practice spanning narrative and experimental filmmaking, video and installation art, photography and writing, Elisabeth Subrin has repeatedly returned to the knotty questions of women’s representation and its tangled relationship with broader social and political forces. In this first solo exhibition in Belgium, Subrin invites you into an immersive installation bringing together two of her most recent works: The Listening Takes and Manal Issa, 2024. Together with Maria Schneider, 1983 – her 2023 César winning single-channel film – they form a trilogy complicating the idea of portraiture and challenging the fundamental logic of the biographical form.
Featuring actresses Manal Issa, Aïssa Maïga and Isabel Sandoval, The Listening Takes (2023-2025) presents three reenactments of a 1983 interview with French actress Maria Schneider (1952-2011) for the TV program Cinéma cinémas – a brief but controversial interview in which the actress was forced to confront the traumatic experience she endured on the set of Last Tango in Paris (1972). Through a complex sonic interplay, the large-scale three-channel video installation presents a collective, cross-historical, intersectional portrait of actresses reckoning with consent, representation, and trauma.
Shot in Beirut in September 2024, Manal Issa, 2024 (2025), presents a fourth reenactment. In it, we hear Issa’s voice answering the very same questions Schneider was asked. This time, however, she speaks her own voice, redirecting Schneider’s answers to a broader j’accuse towards Western patriarchal and capitalist cinema. In addition, the film stands as a powerful consideration of the role of the actor during unfolding global conflict.
The installation in STUK’s main Expozaal is complemented and completed by Subrin’s two-channel work Sweet Ruin (2008), a rarely shown collage film, For Maria (2019), and a selection of carefully curated archival materials.
All in all, How We Find Her is a testimony to Subrin’s long-standing deployment and deconstruction of biographical forms to expose the limitations of the quest for an ‘official record’, and the absences and erasures it often produces. It is equally an invitation to question what positions we can take with our voices today - whether addressing genocide, sexual assault or other injustice - and reckoning with the consequences of speaking up.
Curator: Karen Verschooren
Text: Emma Savino & Karen Verschooren
© Lea Rener
ELISABETH SUBRIN
(°1965, Boston, Massachusetts, United States)
Elisabeth Subrin is a New York-based filmmaker, writer and visual artist who creates works in film, video, photography, and installation. Her critically acclaimed projects explore the intersection between cultural history and subjectivity, through a feminist lens. Known for her use of reenactment, Subrin’s films and video installations have been featured in numerous festivals and exhibitions both in the US and internationally, including solo shows at The Museum of Modern Art, NY, Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the Vienna Viennale. Subrin’s 2016 award-winning feature narrative, A Woman, A Part, had its world premiere in competition at The Rotterdam International Film Festival and traveled to festivals throughout Europe, US and Asia. Her 2022 award-winning short film, Maria Schneider, 1983, starring Manal Issa, Aïssa Maïga and Isabel Sandoval, had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes International Film Festival in Director’s Fortnight and North American premiere at The 60th New York Film Festival in 2022 and was awarded a 2023 César. The Listening Takes was commissioned by David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University in Providence, RI in 2023 and was presented in a new version in Participant Inc in New York in 2025. She is currently developing a feature-length bio-pic and book project about Maria Schneider.
Subrin received a BFA in Film from the Massachusetts College of Art and a MFA in Video from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is a Professor of Film and Media Arts at Temple University. Subrin was a 2020 Fulbright Research Scholar in France at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris-Cergy.
Works in the exhibition
The Listening Takes
2023–2025, 30 min., 3-channel, 16mm/HD video, 9-channel sound & speakers
Film Production Credits for The Listening Takes: Written and Directed by Elisabeth Subrin / Produced by Helen Olive and Martin Bertier, 5A7 Films, Paris / Starring Manal Issa, Aïssa Maïga, Isabel Sandoval and Amélie Prevot / Photography: Pascale Marin / Editing: Jenn Ruff / Sound: Nassim El Mounnabih, Abigail Savage, Lucien Richardson / Production design: Valérie Valéro / Costume Design: Corinne Bruand / Based on an interview by Anne Andreu and Raoul Sangla for Cinéma cinémas
Installation Credits for The Listening Takes: An installation by Elisabeth Subrin/ Production Design by Simon Harding / Sound Mix by Lucien Richardson /Fabrication consultant Jonah Peterschild
Manal Issa, 2024
2025, 10 min., HD video, sound & headphones
A film by Elisabeth Subrin / Written by Manal Issa & Elisabeth Subrin / Voice: Manal Issa / Cinematographer: Bassem Fayad / Sound recordist: Victor Bresse / Editor: Jenn Ruff / Sound design & mix: Lucien Richardson / Color & online: Jeff Sousa / Producer: Lara Abou Saifan, Placeless Films / Co-producer: Elisabeth Subrin / Executive producer: Lia Gangitano, Participant Inc / Shot on location: Barzakh Bookstore & Cafe, Beirut, Lebanon
Sweet Ruin
2008, 10 min., 2-channel video projection, 16mm to HD, sound & headphones
A film by Elisabeth Subrin / Featuring Gaby Hoffmann as T. and The Girl / Cinematography by Megan Olinger/ Sound Design & mix by Taylor Thompson / Editing by Elisabeth Subrin / Wardrobe and Styling Gaby Hoffmann
For Maria
2019, 1 min., HD video, sound & headphones
A film by Elisabeth Subrin / Editing by Jenn Ruff
Selection of Archival Materials
Personal collection of Elisabeth Subrin
All works: Courtesy of the artist
Location
Price
FREE without reservation
