Ruth Erat

Ruth Erat is distinguished by a practice that brings together the visual arts and writing: she is active as a painter, draughtswoman and author, producing narrative, lyrical and dramatic texts while also creating drawings, paintings and installations.

She grew up in Bern and Arbon. After training as a primary school teacher, she continued her studies at the University of Zurich. In 1985, she completed a doctorate in philosophy on Mechthild von Magdeburg.

Alongside her artistic work, she taught and provided training at various institutions, including the Schule für Gestaltung Zürich, the Bäuerinnenschule Rheineck, the Lehrerseminar Rorschach, the Kindergärtnerinnenseminar St. Gallen, the PHR and, later, the ISME (Sargans and St. Gallen). She also directed the «Muttersprache» project at the Pädagogische Arbeitsstelle in Rorschach.

In civic life, as a member of the Sozialdemokratische Partei, she served on the Bezirksschulrat, the municipal council of Rheineck (1991–2001), and the St. Gallen Cantonal Council (2004–2008), and was elected to the Arbon city parliament in 2015. In literary terms, she took part in the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition in Klagenfurt in 1999. Among the distinctions cited are the St. Galler Förderungspreis für Literatur, the Arbeiter-Literaturpreis, the Förderungspreis der St. Galler Kulturstiftung, the Buchpreis des Kantons Bern, and the Hauptpreis der Akademie für gesprochenes Wort (2021).

She is a member of the Verband Autorinnen und Autoren der Schweiz, the Künstler-Berufsverband Visarte and the Schweizerischer Werkbund.

On a personal level, the dossier states that she is married and the mother of two children, and that she lived and worked in Rheineck (SG) from 1990 to 2012. The same sources specify that, following the dissolution of her studio at the Rheinecker Löwenhof, she has been artistically active in St. Gallen since 2016 and has lived there since 2024.