-
![Interesting Things (installation)]( "Interesting Things (installation)")
info -
![Interesting Things (book)]( "Interesting Things (book)")
info -
![Interesting Things (video essay)]( "Interesting Things (video essay)")
info -
![Case No. ARB/24/44]( "Case No. ARB/24/44")
info -
![Case No. ARB/24/44]( "Case No. ARB/24/44")
info -
![Case No. ARB/24/44]( "Case No. ARB/24/44")
info -
![Case No. ARB/24/44]( "Case No. ARB/24/44")
info -
![A Year in Exile]( "A Year in Exile")
info -
![The Landscape Assembles as We Gaze]( "The Landscape Assembles as We Gaze")
info -
![The Landscape Assembles as We Gaze]( "The Landscape Assembles as We Gaze")
info -
![Outside The State: Our relationship to the land]( "Outside The State: Our relationship to the land")
info -
![dear tomorrow,]( "dear tomorrow,")
info -
![Rottal (dummy)]( "Rottal (dummy)")
info -
![Greenland. Everything Changes]( "Greenland. Everything Changes")
info
conversations, collaborations and research intertwine
As a research-based visual artist and writer, I explore narratives and collective narrations. Conversations, collaborations and research intertwine. Often, I take archives and found imagery as a starting point to my practice which takes shape in (video) essays, books and exhibitions.
I am interested in the circulation of images, their changing contexts and connotations. For me, photographs are visual manifestations of relationships; I treat them as snippets of perspectives to investigate how the individual relates to larger socio-political power relations and hegemonic narrations.
I understand my work as explicitly political. It is centered around conversations – conversations as a research-method, but also as encounters with the audience. Therefore, I often incorporate elements that foster participation. I embrace complexity and multiperspectivity as I feel these qualities are needed to navigate any interaction and the world at large.
Websites
portfolio
www.salomeerni.comSocial media
Curriculum vitae
Opleidingen
-
2025 - 2027DAI Dutch Art Institute/ Roaming Academy Arnhem, ARTEZ, Academie Beeldende Kunst en Vormgeving
-
2023 - 2025fotografie Den Haag, Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten Diploma behaald
-
2021 - 2023Camera Arts School of Art Luzern
-
2020 - 2021Voorbereidend Jaar School of Art Luzern Diploma behaald
tentoonstellingen
-
2025Graduation Show KABK Den Haag
-
2025Open Student Call Noorderlicht Groningen
-
2025This Didn't Make It To Grad Billytown Den Haag by Komma Collective
-
2025Underscore Paradise Den Haag by Komma Collective
-
2024Letters to a friend Bacio Collective Bern
-
2024Outside The State: Our relationship to the land Mois de la photo Grenoble
-
2024How Language Flows Papillarya Zurich
-
2024Butterfly Was Finding Out Yesterday How to Make Sense of Misunderstandings The Greyspace in The Middle by Komma Collective
-
2024Open Student Call Noorderlicht Groningen
-
2023Lobster Fest PIP Den Haag by Lobster Lobby
-
2023Fotowerkschau Luzern
-
2021Rue de Blamage Kali Galerie Luzern
-
--Lens on Law: Edges of Proximity west Den Haag in collaboration with the Asser Institute
-
--A Year in Exile Quartair Den Haag by Tabaria Café
-
--Recyclart Brussels by Komma Collective
projecten
-
2025
Interesting Things How to look at photographs while witnessing a genocide? The work Interesting Things is an insight into ongoing conversations that deal with images from Palestine (1921-1923), which were labelled Des Choses Intéressantes – Interesting Things – by the photographer. I, too, feel connected to these images, existing as matter, as photographs in exile, so close by. That is why, in the video essay, I chose to be present in front of the camera myself: handling the negatives and reciting the voice-over. By inverting the video footage – thereby turning the negatives into positives – the essay engages with the political act of looking. Who gazes at whom, and what power dynamics are at play? Narratives are not inherent to photographs, but constantly in flux. This is especially apparent in the liminal space between photographs and annotations. What can be retrieved, what meanings can be infused, what should be added? My publication Interesting Things juxtaposes Frank Scholten’s photographs with words. It appropriates how Frank Scholten captioned his images to create a biblical taxonomy of people and places in the books he published himself, questioning how later archivists and researchers assigned keywords and titles. By inviting collaborators to contribute with their words, the publication deconstructs notions of knowledge and narrations of Euro-Christian hegemony. When thinking of Palestine as a land under colonial and imperial rule, a line can be traced, connecting Orientalism’s patronizing depictions of an “empty land” to the current genocide, to the organised destruction of a people. A line runs from Zionism’s urge to erase Palestinian lives from the archives to the scattered photographic heritage today. A line runs from Palestine under British Mandate to the current oppression. A line runs from Frank Scholten’s images to today’s gazes. When looking at Frank Scholten’s photographs, there are many “others” to encounter, and the installation Interesting Things provides a space to both explore these relations, and to position oneself in them. We are not mere spectators; everyone is involved in imperialist projects that continue to intersect in Palestine.
-
2025
Case No. ARB/24/44 West Den Haag I work with the visual traces of Case No. ARB/24/44, an international arbitration between a gas company and the Netherlands which was filed in October 2024.The work not only speaks about the case study of the Groningen gas field, but also about the designed inaccessibility of such arbitrations and a world where states are often complicit with companies when the revenues are high enough, until the people pressure them to reconsider. By borrowing the language of activism, I tackle the abstract postcolonial frameworks of Investor-State-Dispute Settlement and ask the audience: Where is the public interest? Case No. ARB/24/44 is the outcome of a residency at the Asser Institute, a research centre for international and European law in The Hague. Over the period of four months I worked alongside two other artists in residency, being in close contact with researchers at the Asser Institute, especially Dr. Stephanie Triefus. The collaboration culminated in the exhibition Lens on Law: Edges of Proximity at West Den Haag in February 2025, together with West‘s Grand Opening.
-
--
The Landscape Assembles as We Gaze Mapping a landscape is an act of creating narratives – not about depicting land itself. What cartography renders visible are the interactions between humans and the landscape. To investigate the socio-political dimensions of mapmaking, Korporation Uri serves as a case study: a centuries-old commons* in Central Switzerland which manages vast areas of alpine pastures, glaciers, and rocky fields. The organisation can be interpreted as a construct of a bygone age, based on inherited privileges and inequalities. But the commons are also a utopian promise of shared ownership and equality. Very similarly, the Alps have often been portrayed as the guardians of an ideal society. Within these tensions, people create visual manifestations of Korporation Uri’s mountainous landscape – be it webcam images, models, maps or herbariums. With all these diverse practices of mapping, they shape the identity and history of the place and thus take collective ownership of the land. The project The Landscape Assembles as We Gaze collects expressions of mapping surrounding Korporation Uri. As mapping means establishing narratives, this project embraces polyphony – and becomes a map itself.
-
--
Stars for Europe I was invited to a field trip to Romania. But how to encounter a new place, new people? How to create under the circumstances of not-knowing? I decided to ask and listen. Equipped with a camera, a notepad, and twenty printed questionnaires, I travelled to Bucharest in autumn 2022. There, I got to know one of the youngest EU member countries through its emerging generation. During my three weeks’ stay we established a dialogue about the construct of Europe, our different realities and shared hopes – about what connects us more than 2000 kilometres apart. As I got the chance to exhibit at Fotowerkschau Luzern, I asked the same questions to my non-EU audience in Switzerland and thus continued the conversation. The video with my images and handwritten charts served as a diary and a platform for connection.
Internationale uitwisselingen / Artist-in-residencies
-
2025The Asser Institute Den Haag, Nederland Lens on Law
opdrachten
-
2025Edith S. Ambühl, Fotografien book (design) Uitgevoerd
-
2024Angelus Novus book (design) Uitgevoerd
-
2024Edith S. Ambühl, Zeichnungen, desenhos, drawings book (design, with Luca Blum) Uitgevoerd
-
--Verein Stolpersteine book (design, concept) Uitgevoerd
publicaties
-
2025further 05 Verlag Kettler Fotobus Society
-
2025Outside The State: Our relationship to the land Essarter Éditions
-
2025Interesting Things self-published Salome Erni
-
2024Grönland. Alles wird anders ALPS
-
2024further 04 Verlag Kettler
-
2024The Landscape Assembles as We Gaze self-published
Prijzen en stipendia
-
2025Blurring the Lines (nominated) with Interesting Things
-
2025DASA-Awards (nominated) with Greenland. Everything Changes by ALPS
-
2025Upcoming Filmmakers
-
2024EuroFabrique Art Camp in Cerveira
-
2023Scholarship Swiss Study Foundation
artistieke nevenactiviteiten
-
2023 - 2025freelance bookmaker (concept and design) Loopt nog
-
2023 - 2024Assistant Curator/ Project Coordinator ALPS (Switzerland)
-
2020 - 2023commissions as a photographer
-
2019 - 2023Journalist (writer and editor, Luzerner Zeitung)