Vanessa Gravenor’s artistic research investigates the aftermaths and aftereffects of secret military operations, and how these resound on words, images, and psyches that distort and skew the perception of histories. She works with this distortion as an aesthetic means to navigate the unspoken, delving into the negativity of the archive, questioning if it can ever resound as an image. Her filmic works have centered on pedagogical lessons from the Soviet–Afghani War, former secret cities on the West coast of Latvia, and neuroscientific studies on post-traumatic stress disorder: research that probes how the imagination and imaginary is latently shaped but can be dreamt anew. Employing the intimate lens of auto-fiction, her works depart from embodied experience, grounding screen cultures and image theory in the affective.

Selection of presentations include: Goethe Institut Toronto (2024); Daïmôn, Gatineau, CA (2023); One World Romania (2023), 68th International Short Film Festival, Oberhausen (2022); 38th Kasseler Dok und Videofest (2021); Lichter Art Award (2020); Kim?, Riga, LV (2020); Park Avenue Armory, NYC, USA (2019); nGbk, Kunstraum Bethanien, Berlin DE (2019); VBKÖ, Vienna (2019); Transmediale Vorspiel (2018); VISIO, Lo Schermo dell’arte, Florence, IT (2018); Ujazdowski Castle, A-I-R Laboratory, Warsaw, PL (2016). Her writing has been published in Third Text, n.paradoxa, ArtMargins, and Artforum, as well as the co-edited online publication Archives of the Body – The Body in Archiving (2024). 

She is completing her artistic–theory doctorate at HFBK–Hamburg where she also held the position of an Artistic Research Associate from 2021–2024. She is a collaborating board member of art&dialogue e.V., a collective organization operating at the borders of art and research. She is part of the Emerging Eye Network, a group of filmmakers and video artists based in Berlin who organize formal and informal screenings.