Olivia Abächerli
Born in Stans (Switzerland) in 1992.
Swiss · Contemporary art · research-based drawing, critical mapping, video, animation and socially engaged installation.
Swiss visual artist Olivia Abächerli, based in Bern, places drawing at the centre of a research-driven practice extending across paper, walls, animation, video, sound and installation. Drawing is not merely representational in her work; it operates as an embodied process of thinking, orientation and continual renegotiation of knowledge.
Following a foundation course at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts – Design & Art, she completed a BA in Fine Arts at Bern University of the Arts and an MA in Art Praxis at the Dutch Art Institute in Arnhem. From 2019 to 2021, she was a fellow of the Sommerakademie Paul Klee, further developing the discursive and collective dimensions of her practice.
Her work examines relationships between the individual and the collective, and between private experience and political structures. Subjective maps, diagrams, densely populated panoramas and animated sequences expose networks of economic, emotional and historical interdependence. The ecological crisis, myths of Swiss neutrality, colonial entanglements, political divisions within families, class and queer experience converge in deliberately complex configurations in which the artist’s own position remains visible.
Significant institutional presentations include «Polsima» at Aalto University’s M8 Art Space, exhibitions at the Nidwaldner Museum, the solo exhibition «the center and the other» at Kunsthalle Luzern and the evolving drawing project developed at Kunsthalle Bern. She received a Swiss Art Award in 2025, followed by presentations in Langenthal and Meggen and, in 2026, at the Nidwaldner Museum and Kunstmuseum Thurgau.
Alongside her individual practice, Abächerli develops collaborative forms of production, notably through the DUELL collective with Amélie Bodenmann. Publications such as «Ibu Silla» and «Ich bin frei und mir ist schlecht» extend drawing into the editorial field, bringing historical research, memory, fiction and dialogue into contact. One of her video works is also documented in the art collection of the Municipality of Meggen.