Una Szeemann’s artistic practice—spanning sculpture, installation, video, drawing, and photography—explores the translation of hidden inner and outer phenomena into sensorially perceptible forms. Her work combines conceptual rigor with material inquiry, drawing inspiration from fields such as psychoanalysis, biology, anthropology, and mythology. Central themes include traces and remnants of the body, the relationship between nature and imitation, and the visualization of the unconscious.
Her artistic trajectory is marked by interdisciplinary openness. She understands art not merely as an object but as a space for thought and experience. The visible and the invisible, the body and its trace, memory and transformation form the poles of her installation-based and materially reflective works. Her practice weaves together formal reduction with conceptual depth, philosophical discourse, and poetic materiality. It resonates with the traditions of surrealist explorations of the unconscious as well as with currents in conceptual art and artistic research.
Solo and group exhibitions include MAN Museo d’arte Nuoro, Kunsthaus Zürich, Kunsthalle Winterthur, MASI Lugano, the Kunstverein in Hamburg, Belvedere 21 in Vienna, the Nam June Paik Art Center in Seoul, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona, the Contemporary Art Center Vilnius, and Kunsthalle Wien. She has also exhibited at Manifesta 11, the 5th Busan Biennale in Korea, the 3rd Contour Biennale in Belgium, the 9th Lyon Biennale, and the 52nd Venice Biennale.
Una Szeemann lives and works in Zürich and Tegna.
Raphael Gygax, 2025 (Excerpt from SIKART Lexikon)