“Sans histoire” confronts present-day fears of the end of civilization both ‘without history’ and
‘without story’ Unnerving footage of animals at night, visions of a technologized future, and images
of people dancing to excess or fleeing from war combine to generate an apocalyptic atmosphere. Yet
what initially appears dystopian bears a utopian potential for new beginnings: again and again, the
film deploys images of waves, oceans, and currents that sweep up what she shows, wash it away,
and absorb it.
Biography
Maya Schweizer, born in Paris, studied art and art history in Aix-en-Provence, at the Hochschule der
bildenden Künste Leipzig (HGB), where she completed her pre-diploma, and at the Universität der
Künste (UdK) Berlin in the class of Lothar Baumgarten, where she graduated in 2006 and was
awarded the title of Meisterschülerin in 2007. Schweizer works in a variety of media (including
photography and textiles), although her focus is on experimental video works. She has had numerous
solo exhibitions (including Jewish Museum Berlin, 2023, Deutscher Künstlerbund, Berlin – Exhibition
winner of the HAP Grieshaber 2022 award, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, 2020/21, Kunstverein
Leipzig, 2018, Kunstverein Langenhagen, 2013, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2016, Kunsthalle
Baden-Baden, 2014, Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2011, Westfälischer Kunstverein Münster, 2010.
She has shown her work in group exhibitions and at biennials including Neuen Berliner Kunstverein e.V.,
Berlin 2020, Manifesta 13 Marseille, 2020, Anren Biennale China, 2018, Kunsthaus Dresden, 2016,
The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, 2013, Centre Georges Pompidou, 2007,Berlin
Biennale, 2006. Her videos have already been selected for numerous festivals and events, including
Forum expanded during the 67th and the 71.rst Berlin International Film Festival, Berlinale (in 2017
and 2021), the Vancouver International Film Festival (2017, 2020) and the International Short Film
Festival Oberhausen several times. Examples of the Awards, project grants and residencies, include;
Funding programme for women artists in film/video, 2024, Dagesh Art Award 2023, HAP-Grieshaber-
Prize, 2022, e-flux film award, 2019, Artist in Residence, La Non-Maison, 2014, Studio grant, Karl
Hofer Gesellschaft, 2008–2010, Villa Aurora, Los Angeles (2008). So far, four monographs on her
work have been published: Voices, (Walther and Franz König, 2121), Where Ivy Cracks The Wall
(Naima, Paris / Berlin 2019), Lieux de Mémoire and Desire (Archive Books, Berlin 2015) and Maya
Schweizer?The Same Story Elsewhere (Spector Books, Leipzig 2010). Schweizer works in Germany
and France.
