The M-residency of Niels Poiz

M gives Niels Poiz a four-month residency at Cas-co. Niels Poiz (born 1991 in Torhout) is a visual artist with an artistic practice that circles around language, narration and communication. In his work, Niels Poiz deals with current socio-political, cultural, identity and gender issues.

M-resident Niels Poiz — Niels Poiz, foto: Stefanie Schaut

Niels Poiz (born 1991) lives and works in Brussels in Belgium. Niels Poiz holds a Master's degree in visual arts from the LUCA School of Arts in Brussels and a second Master's degree in Arts & Design from the Sint-Lucas Institute in Antwerp.

In addition to participating in various group and solo exhibitions at home and abroad, his work are regularly shown at various Art Book Fairs throughout Europe. Last summer, he also did a residency at Villa Empain in Brussels. In cooperation with other artists, he curated several group exhibitions and in 2019, he organised the performance festival 'IN (EN) ACTING ROLES'.

With fragments that the artist extracts from the archives of popular culture – decontextualised words taken from pop songs, films, cyber culture and advertising – Poiz gives expression to his own story and that of others. Coming-of-age themes, the study of communication strategies and sociology form a common thread throughout his oeuvre.

Niels Poiz presents his research as posters, videos, performances, sculptures or publications. By translating his personal search into physical space, he tries to expose the contemporary mechanisms of our digital culture. These include the obvious sharing of private lives online, as a result of which intimate information is absorbed into the public archives of our society.

Fun fact, Niels was in the selection of Open M edition 2015 as an artist.