The wolves where so bold last night, that they carried away a fresh bearskin that was lying by the fire / 2021 - 2024 / Photography

Serie Inspired by the language of myths and legend from alpine regions.

Reverseglass prints, framed / 20:30cm, 40:60cm

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 laid to rest?

"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 — faces become shadowy puppet heads, landscapes turn into backdrops. As so often in her work, the familiar shifts into something uncanny.

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 addendum to "Uri damals" — an invitation to a dialogue between then and now, and a way of renegotiating the book's role in shaping local identity.

Bookrelease and Performance in Flüelen

Concept and Photos: Nathalie Bissig
Graphic Design: Sarah Infanger
Texts: Tobias Büchi, Marilin Brun
Print: Gisler Druck AG, Altdorf.

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

Hollywood (UR) / Since 2023 / Photography

The work documents the costume choices of young people during Carnival in Canton Uri since 2023, tracing the marks of globalisation within this ancient tradition.

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”

How do we face what we cannot control – the violence of nature, the fragility of the body, the certainty of death?

Masks appear in this space. They give form to what resists representation and act as mediating objects in relation to forces that exceed human control.

Between 2013 and 2019, Nathalie Bissig produced over 60 hand sewn masks from textiles and found materials. Drawing on the idea of the apotropaic, from the Greek apotropaios, meaning to repel, these works function as protective forms that transform, absorb, deflect, and hold at a distance what cannot be named.

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