Natacha Nisic is an artist and filmmaker. She weaves links between history and collective memory in investing its implications into the political, social and cultural fields. She explores the relationships between images, words, interpretation, symbol and ritual. Her work questions the nature of langage, image and sound through different media : video, photography and drawing.
Her drawing practice took root in 2011 in the wake of the triple disaster in Japan’s Tohoku region, and the works she produced from 2013 until now, “Fukushima 1,2,3, …”, echo the works “f”, “e” and “Osoresan”, exploring possible forms of resistance in an era marked by the weight of the past. The films “Saint Désir l’Exil” and “Et n’être que brume” follow on this exploration.
In spring 2023, she publishes Les Fumées, carnets d’un génocide, Rwanda 1994 – France 2018, about the possibilities of representing violence, following the trial of two mayers in Rwanda accused of genocide. Since 2024, the book has been presented in the form of staged readings.
She has been awarded of the Lea und Hans Gründig Prize in 2021 for the creation of The Crown Letter (2020), an international platform of women artists, in response to the Corona virus crisis.
Natacha Nisic directed Rather Die Than Die (2018) a documentary essay on the First World War and the art historian Aby Warburg as part of the commemorations of the Centenary of the First World War, and, for Arte, Andrea’s Sky (2014) on a Bavarian shaman initiated in South Korea. Natacha Nisic exhibits worldwide — recent exhibitions include “L’âge atomique”, MAM, Paris, MacLau, Québec, MNAV – Museo nacional de Artes Visuales, Montevideo, Uruguay, for Bienalsur, Frise, Hamburg, Germany, the Triennale d’art contemporain, Chaleur Humaine (2023), the Leoplod Hoesch Museum, Düren (2021), Centre Pompidou, Catalogue de Gestes, (2020), Sharjah Film Platform (2019), the Yebisu Film Festival, Tokyo (2018), the Media City Biennale in Seoul (2016), Bienal de la Imagen en mouvement in Buenos Aires, Munfret in Buenos Aires (2016), Fondation Hermès in Seoul (2012), K21 in Düsseldorf (2011), Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo (2010), British Film Institute, London (2010). In 2014, about her highly acclaimed solo exhibition, Echo at the Jeu de Paume in Paris, the Art Press newspaper writes “His work offers a mediation on cultural differences, on the necessary struggle to consolidate memory against oblivion”. Natacha Nisic created the Children’s Memorial at the Shoah Memorial in Paris in 2005, questioning the question of the monument and its evolution over time
Nisic has obtained numerous scholarships and residencies, notably at FRISE Hamburg (2023), Viktor Rolff Stiftung (2021) Burggladbach, Germany, Villa Kujoyama, Kyoto in 2001 and 2016, at the Gyeonngi Creation Center, South Korea (2010) and at the Villa Medici, Rome in 2007. Education: Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; Deutsche Film und Fernseh Akademie, Berlin; La Femis, Paris. Born in Grenoble, France, in 1967.