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

Drawings / 2021 - 2024
Sizes between 10×15cm and 40×50cm

The drawings are made in series, mostly in ink or gouache on paper. Motifs return and shift, forming variations across the sheets.

Exhibitionviews Espace Jörg Brockmann, Geneva

Since 2015, the Uri-Blog exploraes the Canton of Uri: its raw Alpine landscapes, everyday life, and traditions.

For the project Hollywood (UR) (formerly Uri–Blog), Nathalie Bissig continues her long-term exploration of the Canton of Uri: its raw Alpine landscapes, everyday life, and traditions.

At the heart of the project lies carnival, with its anarchic quality: social roles loosen and established orders momentarily dissolve. 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.

> EXHIBITION VIEWS “HOLLYWOOD (UR) ALTE KIRCHE FLÜELEN / 2025

> Uri-Blog

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. Bissig selects images from the book and reinterprets them photographically new. As so often in her work, the familiar shifts into something unfamiliar.

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

Hausfasnacht Unterschächen / 2010 / Photography

C-Prints, framed, 45cm:60cm

"During Carnival in Unterschächen, a village of 700 inhabitants in the mountains of Uri, Central Switzerland, groups of masked people go from house to house to perform their theater in front of families."

Exhibitionviews Winkelriedhaus Stans

Drawings / 2021
Chines ink or gouache on paper / 40:50cm / 30:40cm / 24:32cm

The drawings emerge from an intuitive process and work in series, mostly in ink or gouache on paper. Motifs and fragments recur and shift across sheets, revealing subtle variations in line, form, and feeling. Sometimes they pick up fragments from photographs, entering into a quiet dialogue with them.

Exhibitionviews Espace Jörg Brockmann

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

This work is part of the series Hollywood (UR)
See exhibition > Hollywood (UR)

Drawing Charokal on Paper
150cm:110cm / 110×75cm

Installationview Kunsthaus Zug
Exhibition “Eintauchen”

Between 2013 and 2019, Nathalie Bissig made over 60 masks from textiles and found materials, 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. Nature, the body, death. The masks don't answer these, but they hold them.

2013 in collaboration with Annemarie Oechslin

The drawings are made in series, mostly in ink or gouache on paper. Motifs return and shift, forming variations across the sheets.

Im Wald / 2017
Chinese ink on paper / 40:50cm / 30:40cm

The drawings are made in series, mostly in ink or gouache on paper. Motifs return and shift, forming variations across the sheets.

Exhibitionviews Winkelriedhaus Stans

Dall’ Alto / 2014 – 2019 / Photography

Project about the natural forces up the mountains.

Pigment and silver gellatine prints, unframed.
Sizes: 165cm:110cm / 110cm:73cm / 24cm:34cm

Exhibitionviews Espace Jörg Brockmann, Geneva