Sarah Gerats

Performer

Sarah studied art at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy Amsterdam, the Kuvataideakatemia Helsinki and completed her studies in 2011 with a postgraduate at the Higher Institute for Fine Art in Ghent, Belgium.
In 2012 she accidentally moved to Svalbard, an archipelago at 78 degrees North, where she has been living and working since.
She combines her artistic practice with working on tall ships as a guide, both in the far North and the deep South. Her work gives her the possibility to develop a thorough knowledge of the Polar regions, and to work in seemingly inaccessible places.
Sarah works with photo, video, performance and stories. All of her works are staged situations, recorded by a camera. She usually works alone, out in nature using a tripod and a timer. She often appears in her own work, incorporating her body into the environment, reacting to her surroundings. Her work is highly visual and often refers to art history through classic poses and sublime landscapes. Her performative actions search for a strong female presence in the rapidly changing high North.