Ursula Biemann

A table in the forest with someone nearby collecting samples from the forest floor
Forest Law, 2014
Synchronized 2-channel HD video (r/t: 38:00), artist book
Courtesy the artist

Ursula Biemann is an artist, writer, and video essayist based in Zurich, Switzerland. Her artistic practice is strongly research oriented and involves fieldwork in remote locations where she investigates climate change and the ecologies of oil, forest, ice and water, as in the recent projects Deep Weather (2013), Forest Law (2014) and Subatlantic (2015). Her recent fieldwork has taken her to the forests of Amazonia and to the Arctic region. She works the findings into multi-layered videos by connecting the micropolitics on the ground with a theoretical macro level, interweaving vast cinematic landscapes with documentary footage, SF poetry and academic findings to narrate a changing planetary reality.  Her earlier work focused on geographies of mobility, e.g. in the widely exhibited art project Sahara Chronicle on clandestine migration networks. Her video installations are exhibited worldwide in museums and at international art biennials in Liverpool, Shanghai, Sevilla, Istanbul, Montreal, Venice and Sao Paulo. She had comprehensive solo exhibitions at New Berlin Art Society n.b.k; Lentos Museum Linz and Helmhaus Zurich. She is publisher of several books including Stuff It — the Video Essay in the Digital Age and is co-founder of the art and media project World of Matter (www.worldofmatter.net) Biemann studied at the School of Visual Arts and the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. She received a doctor honoris causa in Humanities by the Swedish University Umea and the Prix Meret Oppenheim, the Swiss Grand Award for Art. www.geobodies.org

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