Biography
Isobel Knowles and Van Sowerwine have collaborated together since 2001 when they met at art school with a shared interest in stop-motion animation. They began making single-channel films, then quickly moved into installation and interactivity, investigating ways to engage viewers physically and emotionally with narrative-based stop-motion experiences.
They were awarded the inaugural Melbourne International Film Festival XR commission, and showed Night Creatures, an augmented reality stop-motion work at the 2022 Melbourne International Film Festival. Night Creatures had its international premiere at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2023, and won Best Interactive/Immersive Documentary at the Australian International Documentary Conference Awards 2023.
They previously created Can’t do without you (2021), a photographic, video and installation based response to the pandemic was commissioned by the Monash Gallery of Art.
Their previous film Passenger (2019), a stop-motion VR experience set in a taxi that explores ideas of migration, had its world premiere at the 76th Venice International Film Film. Passenger went on to win the Virtual Reality Award – Best Film at the 60th Thessaloniki International Film Festival in 2019, and the Best Fiction – Laval Virtual Halo Award, VRDays, 2020. Passenger has screened in numerous film festival and galleries from 2019-2022 including an exhibition at M+ Museum, Hong Kong in 2022.
Out In The Open (2016), a site-specific installation that uses puppet animation, was inspired by and based around the community of traders at Queen Victoria Market, Melbourne, and was created as a stand-alone film in 2017. In 2015 they collaborated to create Dwelling, an outdoor performance based work that engaged with communities in Melbourne’s Western suburbs, blending performance, documentary video and animation.
Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Out In The Open premiered at the Melbourne International Arts Festival and is currently showing at international film festivals including Aesthetica Short Film Festival, UK, and New Chitose Airport Animation Festival, Japan. Dwelling was nominated for a Green Room award for Design and Realisation in Contemporary Performance. Their 2011 work, It’s a jungle in here won an Award of Distinction in the Interactive Arts category of the 2012 Prix Ars Electronica. Their installation You Were In My Dream, commissioned by Experimenta, won the 2010 Premier of Queensland’s National New Media Art Award, Australia’s most significant prize for new media art. They also won the People’s Choice Award.
In 2008 their animated film Doll Stories: Mary was shown as part of the International Digital Art exhibition in Beijing. In 2006 their installation Expecting was exhibited at the Institute for Contemporary Art, London and FACT, Liverpool. Expecting toured around Australia in 2004/2005 as part of the Experimenta: House of Tomorrow exhibition. Their previous work Play With Me was exhibited at the Art Gallery of NSW as part of the Anne Landa Award, the first award-exhibition for the moving image and new media in Australia. Two of their works were shown at Media City Seoul 2004, the Korean Biennale of New Media Art.
In 2004 Van and Isobel made the film Clara, a 7 minute stop-motion animation. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival as one of nine short films in the Official Selection, where it won a Special Mention. Clara went on to win a Golden Hugo for Best Animation at the 2005 Chicago Film Festival. In January 2006 Clara screened at the Sundance Film Festival.
together, to date. An overview of our collaborative working process looking at several of our digital interactive works. This mini-doc was created by Anna Jeffries in 2011 while we were in production on It's A Jungle In Here.
Isobel and Van at the Venice Film Festival in 2019.
Isobel and Van during the shooting of Clara in 2004