Maya Schweizer – The starfish

The Starfish (2019) is an essayistic film that uses a personal archive to create a layered work in which the sea becomes an interface between past and present, fact and fiction, nature and man. In it, Schweizer combines personal archives, found footage, and authorial footage with voiceover to create a fragmented structure that resembles a stream of consciousness flowing at a shifting pace.

The central motif of The Starfish is the Mediterranean Sea, which the artist views as a place of idyllic recreation and troubled transition, a landscape marked by colonialism, wars and contemporary migration crises. In this way, the sea becomes not only a real geographical formation, but also an archive in which layers of time mingle. In doing so, Schweizer follows in the tradition of essayistic filmmaking in the lineage of authors such as Chris Marker, Agnès Varda and Hito Steyerl. Her video does not explain, but rather suggests, opens up and leaves space for the imagination of the audience, while showing that film as a medium can help reflect on complex social and environmental relations without directly depicting them.

The video will be presented in the gallery on 19 June at 18:00. At 18:30 there will be a moderated discussion with Maya Schweizer, led by the French art historian and chief curator of Kunsthalle Prague, Christelle Havranek. The Starfish will be on display at gallery Fotograf Zone until September 18.

Exhibitors: Mayi Schweizer – The Starfish
Curator: Světlana Malina
Gallery Fotograf Zone
Opening: 29 May, 18:00
Duration of the exhibition: 20 June - 18 September 2025

MAYA SCHWEIZER

lives and works in Berlin. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Ortloff, Leipzig(2024), the Jewish Museum Berlin (2023), the Deutscher Künstlerbund e. V., Berlin (2023), Loop, Barcelona, Spain (2023), ASPN Leipzig (2022), Villa Stuck, Munich (2020), and al Spaziosiena, Siena, Italy (2019), among others. She has also participated in group exhibitions such as Dazugehören! Belonging! at Kunsthaus Dresden (2024), Nature. Sound. Memory at Kunsthaus Baselland, Switzerland (2023), Basel Social Club, Basel, Switzerland (2023), Roma, a Portrait, Palazzo delle Esposizioni Museum, Rome, Italy (2023), Facing New Challenges, Heidelberger Kunstverein (2022), On the Quiet, Salzburger Kunstverein (2022), as well as Manifesta 13 in Marseille, France (2020), Today's Yesterday, 1st Anren Biennale, China (2017), to name just a few examples from recent years. In addition, her films have been screened at festivals, including 2022 and 2017 in the Forum Expanded section of the Berlinale - Berlin International Film Festival. Maya Schweizer has been awarded numerous prizes and grants for her work, most recently the Günther Peill Foundation Prize, Düren (2024-2026), the Dagesh Art Prize (2023) and the HAP Grieshaber Prize of VG Bild-Kunst 2022.