Catalogue > At random

In Sans histoire, an epic river of thought, current fears of the end of civilization are both “without story” and “without narrative”. Disturbing images of animals in the night, visions of a technologized future and images of people dancing to excess or fleeing war combine to generate an apocalyptic atmosphere. Yet what seems dystopian at first conceals a utopian potential for a new beginning: time and again, Schweizer deploys images of waves, oceans and currents that sweep through what she shows, washing it away and absorbing it. Maya Schweizer draws our attention to oblivion as a reality determined by human life. In this paradox lies her proposal for confronting the existential fears of our time: Sans histoire is a space for honoring memory and a monument to oblivion.

Maya Schweizer, born in Paris, studied art and art history in Aix-en-Provence, at the Hochschule der bildenden Künste Leipzig (HGB), where she completed her pre-diploma, and at the Universität der Künste (UdK) Berlin in the class of Lothar Baumgarten, where she graduated in 2006 and was awarded the title of Meisterschülerin in 2007. Schweizer works in a variety of media (including photography and textiles), although her focus is on experimental video works. She has had numerous solo exhibitions (including Jewish Museum Berlin, 2023, Deutscher Künstlerbund, Berlin - Exhibition winner of the HAP Grieshaber 2022 award, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, 2020/21, Kunstverein Leipzig, 2018, Kunstverein Langenhagen, 2013, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2016, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, 2014, Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2011, Westfälischer Kunstverein Münster, 2010. She has shown her work in group exhibitions and at biennials including Neuen Berliner Kunstverein e.V., Berlin 2020, Manifesta 13 Marseille, 2020, Anren Biennale China, 2018, Kunsthaus Dresden, 2016, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, 2013, Centre Georges Pompidou, 2007,Berlin Biennale, 2006. Her videos have already been selected for numerous festivals and events, including Forum expanded during the 67th and the 71.rst Berlin International Film Festival, Berlinale (in 2017 and 2021), the Vancouver International Film Festival (2017, 2020) and the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen several times. Examples of the Awards, project grants and residencies, include; Funding programme for women artists in film/video, 2024, Dagesh Art Award 2023, HAP-Grieshaber-Prize, 2022, e-flux film award, 2019, Artist in Residence, La Non-Maison, 2014, Studio grant, Karl Hofer Gesellschaft, 2008–2010, Villa Aurora, Los Angeles (2008). So far, four monographs on her work have been published: Voices, (Walther and Franz König, 2121), Where Ivy Cracks The Wall (Naima, Paris / Berlin 2019), Lieux de Mémoire and Desire (Archive Books, Berlin 2015) and Maya Schweizer?The Same Story Elsewhere (Spector Books, Leipzig 2010). Schweizer works in Germany and France.