URSULA



ABOUT

Ursula is a collective of women working with the moving image based in Antwerp, Belgium.

Named after and inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, the collective exchanges stories, experience, network and knowledge. Ursula wants to create a common ground for cineasts as well as visual artists working with film, both established and new to the field.

Ursula organises peer-to-peer meetings, exhibitions, screenings and talks, always looking for a conversation between our work and the work of other (feminist) artists. Ursula vzw is also the production platform for work by Jana Coorevits and Alex Schuurbiers. 


URSULA is
Meltse Van Coillie
Jana Coorevits
Lydia Hannah Debeer
Ans Mertens
Alex Schuurbiers
Isabelle Tollenaere
Kathy Vanhout

ursulacollective@gmail.com

URSULA vzw
Klappeistraat 16
2060 Antwerp
Belgium
BE1014.983.551

BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Chloé Op de Beeck
Leander Coorevits
Charlotte De Somviele

GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Eitan Efrat
Natalie Gielen


ARTISTS

Meltse Van Coillie


Meltse graduated from KASK School of Arts Ghent in 2018 with the hybrid short elephantfish. Her graduation film screened at numerous international filmfestivals and received a Wildcard from the Flemish Film Fund. The awarded production budget resulted in a second short, Zonder Meer, which had its international premiere at Berlinale in 2021. In co-direction with Harm Dens, she made a third short in 2022 called Nocturnus, which was shot during the polar night in Greenland. Set in the same area, she is currently developing her first feature film, Torpor, which got selected for the Cinéfondation Residency organized by the Film Festival of Cannes.

Jana Coorevits

www.janacoorevits.com

Jana’s artistic practice is somewhere between that of an experimental filmmaker and a visual artist. An emphasis on physicality is coupled with an exploration of space for the female experience. In an attempt to reveal different nuances of what is going on within and around the body she employs unhurried and intimate renditions. Silence supports the sensitivity of the rhythm. New realms of meaning emerge from the flowing analogy between landscapes and people.

Lydia Hannah Debeer

www.lydiahannah.be

Lydia graduated in fine arts in 2014 and obtained a postgraduate at the HISK in 2016. Her work lets us wander through ambiguous spaces that lie between the present and what is yet to come, between transitions teetering on the edge. She worked in artist residencies such as Hangar in Barcelona, Gasworks in London and NART in Narva. In 2020, Debeer released her first album How to Scale a Mountain with the London-based label Bloxham Tapes. She is currently represented by Fred&Ferry gallery and has started a PhD at the University in Hasselt in 2022.

Ans Mertens

www.ansmertens.com

Ans is a visual artist investigating the intersection of time, film and exhibition space. Her work shows that time, perhaps more than space, is the ultimate subject of attention: time captured, time chased. Arranged, erased, wasted. Leisurely spent, unspectacularly passed. She is currently working on her PhD in artistic research at LUCA School of Arts.

Alex Schuurbiers

www.alexschuurbiers.com

Alex is an audiovisual artist working predominantly with analogue media. Her practice focuses on trance-like, non-hierarchical narrative structures in regards to the subconscious, adressing themes like heimat, maternal lineage, trauma and resilience. Alex researches memory and its representation in film based works, as well as ecological developing methods and the effects of organic matter on celluloid. Her films includes En Vagues (2023) and Where I lay my head to rest (2023) and Song of Homecoming (2023) and Placeholder (2025).

Isabelle Tollenaere



Isabelle is a filmmaker/artist making short films, feature length films and installations, playfully moving between the codes and conventions of documentary and fiction, film and contemporary art. In her practice she mainly explores the connections between the current shifts in reality and the memory of the past. Her filmography includes the short films Viva Paradis (2011), The Remembered Film (2018) and The Fruit Tree (2022), as well as the feature length films Battles (2015) and Victoria (2020, in co-direction). Her films have been shown at the Venice International Film Festival, Berlinale Forum (Caligari Film Prize 2020), IFFR (Fipresci award 2015), Centre Pompidou, Viennale, Visions Du Réel, FID Marseille, IDFA, CPH:DOX, IndieLisboa (Special Jury Prize 2020), and many others. Her work is distributed by Argos, Dalton Distribution, Filmotor and Square Eyes.

Kathy Vanhout

www.kathyvanhout.com

Kathy is a musician and a film scholar. Her new music project is called Opening Night and has yet to release a first album. Apart from writing about cinema, she often does Q&As, juries, interviews and presentations of film(festival)s. Occasionally she is commissioned to write exhibition texts, bios and artist statements. She is also board member of the UPCB-UBFP. Inbetween writing music and essays, Kathy enjoys working with used paper to make notebooks and collages.


EVENTS

UPCOMING EVENTS


PAST EVENTS

ARTICLES

VOOR EEN NIEUW VERLANGEN (2024)

door Kathy Vanhout
Ter gelegenheid van het bezoek van Laura Mulvey in Brussel stelt het Antwerpse collectief Ursula een leesgroep samen. Ursula meets Laura meets Chantal.
Lees hier ︎︎︎

KIJKEN KIJKEN (2024)

door Kathy Vanhout
OFFoff en Ursula nodigen uit om kijken te komen kijken in de Kunsthal in Gent en Het Bos in Antwerpen.
Lees hier ︎︎︎

ROAD MOVIES FOR CITY DWELLERS (2023)

by Alex Schuurbiers
Accompanying text for Ursula’s second exhibition at SECONDroom, featuring work by Lydia Hannah Debeer and Chloé Op de Beeck. 
Read here ︎︎︎

SOLIDARITY FOREVER (2023)

door Kathy Vanhout
Begeleidende tekst bij Ursula’s eerste expo in SECONDroom, met werk van Alex Schuurbiers, Eva Van Tongeren and Joyce Wieland. 
Lees hier ︎︎︎