August - October 2021 — Visual Arts

Swiss artist Flurina Casty describes herself as a storyteller and employs methods of creative writing and performance. Her work is informed by in-depth experience-based research and often focuses on myths and histories surrounding a piece of architecture, urban site or natural topography. Each project begins as a text, which is re-formulated over an extended period of time and finally presented as a monologue performances. In addition to writing, Flurina often captures moments and spaces with her analogue camera or through paintings. She incorporates these into site- or situation-specific installations and performances.

Flurina explains that her approach is intuitive, allowing herself to be guided by the subject matter to choose a suitable media to use. “Through a phenomenological inquiry, my texts are based on observations and experiences in my immediate environment and encounters to make sense of the unknown.”

She has been involved in various collaborations at home and abroad– with South Africa being the most recent place where she worked with artists and activists. In 2017, Flurina collaborated with Trackside Creative and the After School Art Project in Soweto to create a text piece that she performed in a site-specific context. She subsequently developed a project titled (de)construction which centred around the Dube Hostel in Soweto and explored the migrant labour history of South Africa. In 2018 Flurina was invited for a residency at Buyaphi University at Klipspruit in Soweto, where she developed a project that engaged with the history of the Bantu education system during Apartheid.

BIOGRAPHY

After a three-year residency in Amsterdam, Flurina Casty graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 2015. She went on to complete a Master’s degree in Contemporary Art Practice in Bern in 2020. Throughout her education, she exhibited and performed her work in various art contexts in Switzerland and abroad. Currently, Flurina has traded city life for village life in Graubünden, where she alternates between working in her studio and garden.