olivia wiederkehr

Encountering and Acting

Olivia Wiederkehr is a multidisciplinary artist. Performance, video, sculpture, language and linguistic expression, photography, large-scale installations, scores and olfactory interventions in public space are her means of translating philosophical and existential questions into sensorially perceptible forms, situations and happenings. Her works, often developed collaboratively, take place predominantly in public, urban spaces and operate within the field of ephemeral, sculptural monuments.

Her current focus is on the increasing state of speechlessness that lies like a heavy blanket over our global society. She understands this as a state of numbness, daze and paralysis that impairs individual judgement and the capacity to act. She examines this condition in relation to silencing – to social and political structures that marginalise, taboo and suppress voices, stories and events. She understands her artistic practice as an essential tool for transformative social processes, one that regards the world as open to criticism and change.

Language is a form of action that creates or destroys relationships. The artist searches for a language that enables people to enter into relationship again – with themselves, with others and with a situation. She understands language as an ethical stance that does not operate through polarisation. Difference, contradiction and friction must be able to persist without relationships, and with them the possibility of acting together, breaking down.

She understands action as an invitation to create something new together with others – in moments that elude complete control and, precisely because of this, can unfold effects that extend beyond them. A central foundation of her practice is her Manifesto of Freedom of Action, in which she formulates her stance towards the world and essential principles of her artistic practice. Hannah Arendt accompanies this thinking as a philosopher and intellectual interlocutor. In particular, Amor Mundi – the love of the world – enters into dialogue with her own question of freedom of action: the willingness to expose oneself to a shared world in its plurality, to take responsibility for it and to participate in shaping it through one’s own actions.

For the artist, freedom of action is situated in public space, which she understands as plural: a space continually produced anew through antagonistic discourses and differing forces. For her, democracy depends upon this plurality of public spaces.

Since 2017, she has worked between Athens and Zurich. Her experiences in collaborative projects in Greece have shaped her approach to geo- and biopolitical questions and led to the development of a methodology of Vulner_Ability, Foxing and the Strategy of Echoing. Vulner_Ability describes the capacity to expose oneself to one’s own vulnerability and to the vulnerability of the world. Foxing searches for possibilities of action within states of paralysis through analysis, poetry, humour and persistence. The Strategy of Echoing begins where language has become fragile, marginalised or barely audible: questioning, listening and attentive listening, repeating and responding generate a space of resonance in which language can once again become articulated and negotiable as a bodily and social experience.

Driven by a curiosity about human beings, her artistic-epistemic experimental arrangements raise questions about the conditions of perception, judgement and the capacity to act. She understands aesthetics in its original sense of aisthesis – as sensory perception and experience of the world. In a thickened condition, body, memory, theoretical knowledge and sensory experience condense into an epistemic substrate. Her works emerge from this substrate as fragmentary, situated approaches to being-in-the-world, translating questions into aesthetic experience and rendering possible conditions of action perceptible and experiential.

For her, pearls are epistemic fragments of successful actions.

ARTISTIC CV
2022 - 2023 CAS Cultural Journalism, Zurich University of the Arts, ZHdK
2011 - 2014 MAF Master Fine Arts, Zurich University of the Arts, ZHdK
2002 - 2004 BA Art and Media Art, Basel, FHNW
2000 - 2002 Main Studies, Fine Arts and Sculpture Department
Weissensee School of Art and Design Berlin, Germany
1998 - 2000 Foundation Studies, Stage and Costume Design Department
Weissensee School of Art and Design Berlin, Germany
1993 - 1997 Visual Merchandising Designer, Swiss Federal Diploma
1991 - 1992 Foundation Course, School of Design, Zurich

AWARDS - HONOURS - NOMINATIONS
2025 Project Grant, Aargauer Kuratorium, for PEARLS
Project Grant, Pro Helvetia, for PEARLS
Schmerzh – Finalist, Art and Olfaction Awards, Los Angeles
Silver for Schmerzh, ADC Germany
2024 Travel Grant (Greece), Aargauer Kuratorium
2023 Guest Artist 2023, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau
2022 Primeur – First Publication Award, Aargauer Kuratorium
2021 Prix+ Art Award
2021 Travel Grant (Greece), Aargauer Kuratorium
2016 Nomination for the City of Zurich Work Grant
2004 StArt Art Award, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Basel, CH

PUBLICATIONS
2023 COMMON ACTIONS – Primeur First Publication, Edition Fink

RESIDENCIES
2024 FluxLaboratories, Athens
2023 Kunst macht Schule, Department of Cultural Education, Aarau
2021 YellowBrick, Collaboration Space, Athens
2020 YellowBrick, Collaboration Space, Athens (GR)
2017 Y-Residency, Athens (GR)

INTERVENTIONS IN PUBLIC SPACE
2024 SCHMERZH, Olfactory Intervention, KiöR Zurich
2021 YES!NO!YES!NO! – Ural Biennale, Ekaterinburg (RU), Swiss Focus Pro Helvetia
2021 Yes. I want to be free – Poster Intervention, Zimmermannhaus Brugg

PURCHASES
2020 Art Collection of the City of Zurich
2021 Art Collection of the City of Brugg

ART IN ARCHITECTURE
2025 WO SIND WIR – Parish Hall Wettingen, AG (2nd Prize)

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022 HOW TO GENERATE WISDOM – Kunstraum Aarau, CH
2021 SPAZETT – Zimmermannhaus, Brugg
2020 YES!YES!YES!NO!NO! – Kunsthalle Wil, CH
KOMM FORT! – Kunstpavillon PTTH://, Lucerne
2019 DIE UNTERSCHEIDUNG DER RÄUME – AXA Superblock, Winterthur, CH
VULNERABLE TENSIONS – Temporäre Dorfkirche, Winterthur, CH
2016 ALS OB – Kiosk Tabak, Zurich
2015 SHELTERING SHARED SPACES AND MOMENTS IN FRICTION – Tart Gallery, Zurich
2014 GANZ UNVERHOFFT HEUTE MORGEN – Kunstraum Utengasse-sechzig, Basel
2014 SPACIAL PRACTICE IN DAILY USE – Kiosk Tabak, Zurich

CURATORIAL ACTIVITIES
2023 - 2026 PEARLS – Searching for Conditions to Actions of Reconciliation
Artistic Research in Greece
2022 LEGS ATHENS – Performance Festival Athens
2022 My North is Your South - with Alan Alpenfelt, Julia Foster / Pro Helvetia Kairo
2021 - Board Member, Yellow Brick, independent cultural institution of contemporary art, Athens
2014 - 2020 Board Member, Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel, CH
2019 PERFORMATIVE STRATEGIEN DES FRAGILEN RAUMES
with Patricia Bianchi, Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel
2018 LEGS PERFORMANCE RELAY, Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel
2013 - 2015 PANCH – Performance Art Network Switzerland (Co-Founder)
2009 - 2010 JARDIN ROUGE – Platform for Performance Art, Zurich

GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
2025 „PASSATO PRESENTE“, Helmhaus Zurich
2023 AUSWAHL23 (GUEST ARTIST), Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau
2022 AUSWAHL22, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau
2022 JA.NEIN.VIELLEICHT. – Kunsthallen Toggenburg, St. Peterszell
2021 MY HOME IS MY CASTLE – Forum Schlossplatz, Aarau
2019 REGIONALE 20 – Kunsthaus Palazzo, Liestal
2018 ALLES FASSADE – Kunsthallen Toggenburg
2017 STANZE – Villa Renata, Basel
2016 SCH! – Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel
WERKBEITRÄGE der Stadt Zürich – Helmhaus, Zurich
2015 PERFORMATIVE AKTE – O.T. Raum für aktuelle Kunst, Lucerne
AUF IN DEN SUEDEN – altes Kantonsspital Zug
CENTRE PARTING – Kaskadenkondensator, Basel
2014 MASTER FINE ARTS – DIPLOMA EXHIBITION, Shedhalle, Zurich
2013 REGIONALE 13 – FabriCulture, Hégenheim (F)
2012 GALLERY AT THE FLOWERMARKET, Shanghai (CHN)

PERFORMANCES (SELECTION)
2023 PINK.PONK.FLOW. – Warteck Areal, Basel
THE SCENT OF A CLOUD – Villa Bernasconi, Geneva, CH
2022 PINK.PONK.LOUD. – Projektraum Meinblau, Berlin, DE
2021 YES!NO!YES!NO! – Ural Biennale, Ekaterinburg (RU), Swiss Focus Pro Helvetia
2020 YES!YES!YES!NO!NO! – YellowBrick, Athens
2019 VOLUMES OF NOISE AND SILENCE – Die längste Nacht, Walcheturm, Zurich
PINK.PONK.SLOW. – BlauBlau Festival, Helsinkiklub, Zurich
2018 PINK.PONK.FLOW. – Stereoskop Performance Festival, Zurich
2017 FLEISCH WERDEN – Dolder Waldhuus, Visarte Zurich
HOW TO GENERATE WISDOM PART I – Y-Residency, Athens (GR)
2016 HIDING WINGS – Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel
CLAPPING – Sihlquai 55, Visarte, Zurich
FLEISCH WERDEN – Tart Gallery, Zurich
FAHNEN HISSEN – Performance Festival Lenzburg
DIE GOLDENE PEPERONI VON HOLLIGEN – transform, Bern
L‘ANNIVERSAIRE d‘ART – Galerie Palais, Neuchâtel
2015 3 x 100 METER – Performance Reihe Neu Oerlikon
GRENZEN, EICHEN, LINIEN – O.T. Raum für aktuelle Kunst, Lucerne
SPACIAL PRACTICE NR.2 REMIXED – Aubette, Strasbourg (F)
2014 SPACIAL PRACTICE OF DAILY USE
Performance Festival Isarsprudel, Munich (D) / Act Day, Zurich
2013 SPACIAL PRACTICE OF DAILY USE – Emma Museum, Helsinki (FIN)
Galerie Dimanche Rouge, Paris (F)
LE JEUX EST FAIT – L‘ESPACE PERDU – Perla Mode, Zurich
2012 LE JEUX EST FAIT – L‘ESPACE PERDU – Kunsthallen Toggenburg
SINGING WITHOUT SOUND – Shanghai, China (CHN)
2010 DIE EINGELADENEN ENTLADEN – Kaskadenkondensator, Basel
2009 STUNT No.5 – Cargobar, Basel
STUNT No.4 – Kunstverein Freiburg (D)
2008 STUNT No.2 // STUNT No.3 – Kunstraum Riehen
2007 STUNT No.1 – Kunsthalle Basel