Cracks in appearances, representations slipping in and out of reality, and gaps in historiography are all of interest to the artist-researcher Denise Bertschi (*1983, Aarau/CH). Working at the intersection of art, architecture and history, she seeks to render visible the links between Switzerland and planetary geopolitical spaces. To this end, she retraces places of Swiss colonial entanglements and ambivalent relations in the world of economics and culture, while calling into question narratives of nationalism and the notion of neutrality. As a doctoral researcher, she transforms tools of historians, anthropologists, or investigative journalists into her unique artistic research methodology, while creating installations and videos in which critical investigations of places and of visual culture commingle with oral history of the people she encounters.
Denise Bertschi's multi-awarded artistic research practice is exhibited widely in Switzerland and beyond and was repeatedly supported by funding grants (by Pro Helvetia, Getty Research Institute, SNF or the Aargauer Kuratorium). She was awarded the Manor Art Prize in 2020 and nominated for the Swiss Art Awards in 2019. Two of her monographic publications received the "Most Beautiful Swiss Books" in 2019 and 2022. She is part of the Kiefer Hablitzel Göhner Prize jury (Swiss Art Awards) since 2021 and currently conducts her doctoral research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, in collaboration with Haute Ecole d'Art et de Design (HEAD) in Geneva.