Sans histoire

HD / 28:28‘ / Colour and black and white / Sound / 2023

In Sans histoire, an epic river of thoughts, she 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, Schweizer deploys images of waves, oceans, and currents that sweep up what she shows, wash it away, and absorb it.
Maya Schweizer guides our attention to forgetting, as a reality determined by human life. This paradox is where we find her proposal for dealing with our era’s existential fears: Sans histoire is a space to honor remembrance and a monument to forgetting.

Interview with Ines Goldbach
Kunsthaus Baselland