“..investigating the effects of love, gender, femininity, desire, its consequent annihilation and the brutal covert power plays, skilfully broadening the typical relationships between masculinty and femininity online, in his creations Samira Elagoz flirts with the infinite possibilities of performance to shape an original language and offers us a unique brand of performance-reporting, multimedia happening and docufiction”. — Venice Biennale, Silver Lion award
“...does not revolve around solely sexual, gender and social archeology but also tests formal limits of docu-reality setup and performance art.”
– MUBI.com
“..singular ability to completely upend any viewer's beliefs about gender, intimacy and sexuality, and to make space for new ideas.” - Marijn Lems, NRC
“..spaces between violence and intimacy, reality and fiction, life and art, the public and the private, victimhood and agency, and between and within the multiple roles one embodies..” — Jury of Prix Jardin D’europe
About
Samira Elagoz (1989) is a Finnish/Egyptian artist and filmmaker currently based in Amsterdam/Berlin. He graduated with a choreography BA from the Amsterdam University of the Arts in 2016. He has toured with his works in various international film, visual art, and performance contexts, such as Venice Biennale, IDFA, Impulstanz, CPH:DOX, Kaaitheater, The White Chapel Gallery, The EYE museum, Edinburgh Fringe and La Casa Encendida, and won various awards for his works. Latest being the Silver Lion at Venice Biennale Teatro in 2022.
From 2013 till 2019, when still a female artist, Elagoz dedicated his artistic practice to researching and filming cis-men and building an extensive collection of first encounters with male strangers arranged through various online platforms like Craigslist, Tinder, and Chatroulette. Elagoz toured the world nonstop for 5 years, pre and post #metoo, with his performance Cock, Cock, Who’s There? which dealt with sexual violence he experienced in the past. On a quest to find intimacy after touring so many years, Sam realizes that the show started as a genuine ode to being a woman, but revealed itself to be a farewell to being one.
Now he identifies as a transmasculine with a high femme past.
A recurring topic for Elagoz is masculinity and men. While his previous works explored cis-men and masculinity in its different forms from an outside position when still identifying as a woman, his latest work Seek Bromance (2021) changes the vantage point as Elagoz captured his own transition. Elagoz has dedicated his career and being to the discourse on gender, sexual violence and its aftermath, the male gaze, digital romanticism, and intimate encounters. Educated in performative arts, he incorporates aspects of this medium with that of video and film, creating his own unique brand of “docu-fiction”. The most indicative parts of his filmings are that he doesn’t use actors or performers and that all subjects in his works are men. Elagoz always puts himself inside his films as a vérité-esque observer who is also being observed. Elagoz never uses scripts, refuses to work in studios, and wants to gather up real-life events, even to create some in the process of searching for them. He has been a comrade, a lover, a confidant, and a sidekick.
In 2014 Elagoz won the visual art competition Blooom Award in Cologne with his first short “Four Kings”. His documentary-performance Cock, Cock.. Who’s There? won the prestigious Prix Jardin d’Europe competition at Impulstanz 2017. And at Edinburgh Fringe it won the Total Theatre Awards for Emerging talent. It was also nominated for the BNG Bank Nieuwe Theatermakersprijs, competition for most promising young theatre maker in Holland. The German magazine Tanz titled him as one of the most promising talents of 2017.
His first feature film Craigslist Allstars had its premiere in 2016 at IDFA, world’s biggest festival for documentary, and was named by the press a festival favorite. It was nominated in the main competition for best international films at CPH:DOX 2017. It won the “Spirit Of CUFF” prize in 2017 at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. In 2017 he made a gallery work called The Young & The Willing about kissing boys and it was screened for example in the reputable White Chapel Gallery in London.
In 2021, after covid-hibernation Elagoz finished a new work SEEK BROMANCE, that had its premiere at IDFA in November 2021, and was shown for example in Venice Biennale.
Biography
Elagoz spent formative years in a village called Karkkila in Finland. Surrounded by forest, fields and little stimuli, he constantly tried to pervert his mind into divining interest. After escaping in her teens, he braved the world with an endlessly curious and devil may care attitude.
Artistic expression was a mainstay, and he decided on the simple dream of being a dancer. After studying for a year he could not help but find it unfulfilling to be someone else’s tool. Thus he quit and started to study choreography at the SNDO.
Initial expressions were dark, mysterious and cinematic performances. When he started making film he wanted to do the opposite. Documentary, done in a raw and exposed way, in order to create real and tangible connections to the subjects. It all started by accident. A vocation he whimsically decided to pursue after having seen a cool guy at a bar, who he felt needed to be filmed.
Past as a high femme, 1989 - 2019