Since 2015, the Uri-Blog explores the Canton of Uri: its raw Alpine landscapes, everyday life, and traditions.
2021 - 2024
The drawings are made in series, mostly in ink or gouache on paper. Motifs return and shift, forming variations across the sheets. Sizes Between 10×15cm and 40×50cm.
EXHIBITION VIEWS
CIRCULATIONS, PARIS
STANDARD/DELUXE, LAUSANNE
ESPACE JÖRG BROCKMANN, GENEVA
The Wolves Where So Bold That They Carried Away a Fresh Bearskin That Was Lying by the Fire (short title: The Wolves) is a black and white photographic series set in a remote, dreamlike landscape. Figures and fragments appear throughout, at once familiar and difficult to place.
The work draws on the visual language of Alpine myths and legends, where stories helped communities make sense of the unknown and of a fragile, often threatening environment. The title suggests the beginning of a narrative, while the figure of the wolf points to a presence that is both ambiguous and charged.
The series was developed in collaboration with a group of children from the cantons of Uri and Ticino. Costumes and masks were made specifically for the project by Nathalie Bissig.
Reverse glass prints, framed / 20 × 30 cm, 40 × 60 cm
Exhibitionviews Benzeholz Meggen
Exhibitionviews standard/deluxe Lausanne
For the project Hollywood (UR) Nathalie Bissig continues her docuentary long-term exploration of the Canton of Uri.
At the heart of the project lies carnival, with its anarchic quality. While most costumes today may be made in China, the sense of community beneath them is real.
In the villages, carnival often unfolds around a chosen theme. In 2024, Unterschächen, a 700 inhabitants mountain village, adopted “Hollywood,” giving the project its title.
What is it that old photographs do to us? Can ghosts be banished?
"Kaum einer wird sich noch erinnern" (Hardly Anyone Will Remember) draws on the popular volume "Uri damals, Photographien und Zeitdokumente 1855–1925" by Karl Iten. Nathalie Bissig selects images from the book and reinterprets them photographically new.
The work was published as a newspaper supplement in the Urner Wochenblatt, distributed in an edition of 13,000 copies to every household in Uri. It functions as an invitation to a dialogue between then and now, and a way of renegotiating the old book's role in shaping local identity.
Concept and Photos: Nathalie Bissig
Graphic Design: Sarah Infanger
Texts: Tobias Büchi, Marilin Brun
Print: Gisler Druck AG, Altdorf
Opening with Performance 2019 in Flüelen
During Carnival in Unterschächen, a small mountain village in Uri, central Switzerland, groups of masked figures go from house to house, performing short plays in front of families.
2021
The drawings are made in series, mostly in ink or gouache on paper. Motifs return and shift, forming variations across the sheets. Sizes Between 10×15cm and 40×50cm.
EXHIBITION VIEWS
CIRCULATIONS, PARIS
STANDARD/DELUXE, LAUSANNE
ESPACE JÖRG BROCKMANN, GENEVA
2020 / Photography and Textile Masks
inspired by the Dionne-Sisters / Project for Edition5 Erstfeld
ongoing since 2023
The work documents the costume choices of young people during Carnival in the Canton of Uri since 2023, tracing the marks of globalisation within this long-standing tradition. The images are made spontaneously on site, in quick, almost flash-like encounters with Gen Z, within the dense and lively atmosphere of the festivities.
Pigment prints, framed, 40cm:60cm
EXHIBITION VIEWS “HOLLYWOOD (UR)
HOLLYWOOD (UR)
COSTUMES
URI–BLOG
Between 2013 and 2019 over 60 masks from textiles and found materials have been made, hand sewn, each one different. The apotropaic (from the Greek, to repel) is one way to think about them: objects that stand between us and what we cannot control.
2013 in collaboration with Annemarie Oechslin
2022–2025
The drawings are made in series, mostly in ink or gouache on paper. Motifs return and shift, forming variations across the sheets. Sizes Between 10×15cm and 40×50cm.
EXHIBITION VIEWS
CIRCULATIONS, PARIS
STANDARD/DELUXE, LAUSANNE
ESPACE JÖRG BROCKMANN, GENEVA
2017
The drawings are made in series, mostly in ink or gouache on paper. Motifs return and shift, forming variations across the sheets. Sizes Between 10×15cm and 40×50cm.
EXHIBITION VIEWS
WINKELRIEDHAUS, STANS
CIRCULATIONS, PARIS
STANDARD/DELUXE, LAUSANNE
ESPACE JÖRG BROCKMANN, GENEVA
2016 – 2019
In the photographic series Dall’ Alto Nathalie Bissig stages her self-made textile masks in the remote landscape of the Verzasca Valley, a mountain valley in southern Switzerland. It appears as if nature itself is brought to life by elemental forces through the wearing of the masks.
EXHIBITION VIEWS
ESPACE JÖRG BROCKMANN, GENEVA
CIRCULATIONS, PARIS
AARGAUER KUNSTHAUS
