Ben Rivers

Ben Rivers was born in Somerset, UK in 1972 and lives and works in London. Rivers’ films are typically intimate portrayals of solitary beings or isolated communities; his practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction. Rivers uses these themes as a starting point from which to imagine alternative narratives and existences in marginal worlds.

Recent solo exhibitions include Ghost Strata and other stories, Jeu de Paume, Paris (2023); It’s About Time, STUK, Leuven, Belgium (2023); After London, Jeu de Paume, Paris (2022); Urthworks, Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, Norway (2021) and Hestercombe House, Somerset, UK (2020); Now, at Last!, Kate MacGarry Gallery, London (2019); Urth, Renaissance Society, Chicago, (2016); Islands, Hamburg Kunstverein, Germany (2016); Earth Needs More Magicians, Camden Arts Centre, London (2015) and Fable, Temporary Gallery, Cologne, Germany (2014). 

Group exhibitions include Somewhere from here to heaven, Azkuna Zentroa, Bilbao, Spain (2022); Hollow Earth: Art, Caves & The Subterranean Imaginary, Nottingham Contemporary, UK (2022); Eye Art & Film Prize with Hito Steyerl and Wang Bing, Eye Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2018) and Museum of Clouds, Tate Modern, London, UK (2018). In 2013 he was awarded the Artangel Open Commission with the resulting film, The Two Eyes Are Not Brothers, presented at the derelict BBC Television Centre in 2015 and at The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester in 2016. Rivers’ first feature-length film, Two Years at Sea, was presented in September 2011 at the 68th Venice International Film Festival and won the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize. A new publication, Collected Stories, was published in 2023, bringing his films into conversation with fourteen writers who have influenced his work.