Ursula Biemann: ›Acoustic Ocean‹

Ursula Biemann is an artist, author, and video essayist. Her artistic practice is strongly research oriented and involves fieldwork in remote locations where she investigates climate change and the ecologies of oil, ice and water. She works the findings into multi-layered videos by connecting the micropolitics on the ground with a theoretical macro level, proposing a reflexive exploration of planetary and videographic organization.

In her videos, the artist interweaves vast cinematic landscapes with documentary footage, SF poetry and academic findings to narrate a changing planetary reality. Biemann’s pluralistic practice spans a range of media including experimental video, interview, text, photography, cartography and materials, which converge in highly formalized spatial installations. Her work also adopts the form of publications, lectures, and curatorial as well as collaborative research projects.

 

Ursula Biemann (*1955 in Zurich, Switzerland) studied at the School of Visual Arts de New York and completed her postgraduate studies at the Whitney Independent Study Program (ISP) in New York. She works in Zurich.

Her works have been presented internationally in solo and group exhibitions: among others, in solo exhibitions at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein n.b. k (2013), Lentos Museum Linz (2012), Nikolaj Contemporary Art in Copenhagen (2009), Helmhaus Zurich (2009), Bildmuseet Umea in Sweden (2007), and group exhibitions at the Biennale of the Moving Image, Buenos Aires, AR (2022), Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong, HK (2021), Museum of Contemporary Art Ludwig, Budapest, HU (2021), Kunst Haus Wien, Vienna, Au (2020), HKW, Berlin, DE (2020), Taipei Biennale, Taipei, Taiwan (2018), Tate Modern, London (2015), ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany (2015), Maldives Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Venice, IT (2013), Centre George Pompidou, Paris, FR (2010).

She has been awarded the Prix Meret Oppenheim (2009), the Grand Swiss Art Prize (2009), Prix Thun for Art and Ethics (2018), Viper International Media Art Prize, Basel (2004), International Media Art Prize, ZKM Karlsruhe (2002), Prix Palmarès Biennale of the Moving Image, St. Gervais, Geneva (1999), among others.