BIOGRAPHY
Aurèle Ferrier is a visual artist working with film. His moving-image works unfold between artists’ film, exhibition contexts, and cinema, exploring how human-made environments—urban peripheries, infrastructures, and sites of densification—shape perception, orientation, and the experience of time. Working from real locations and architectural situations, Ferrier develops his images through duration: sustained, precisely guided camera movements and close attention to scale, surfaces, materiality, and sound. Built environments do not function as backdrops, but emerge as active, formative forces that reconfigure landscapes and shift ways of inhabiting the world.
Selected presentations include IDFA (Amsterdam), Rencontres Internationales (Paris/Berlin), MACRO (Rome), Image Forum (Tokyo), Jameel Arts Centre (Dubai), Anthology Film Archives (New York), Open City Documentary Festival (London), and Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art.
STUDIES
2014 MA Fine Arts, Zurich University of the Arts
2004 BA in Theatre (Leading Artist), Zurich University of the Arts
2003 Exchange Program, Experimental Theatre Wing, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
SELECTED AWARDS AND GRANTS
2021 Fine Arts Grant, Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Zurich
2021 Weitblick – trailer Ruhr Prize, Blicke Filmfestival des Ruhrgebiet, Bochum
2021 Fine Arts Grant, Freiraumstipendium, Canton of Zurich
2020 First Prize, In Out Festival, Laznia Center of Contemporary Art, Gdansk
2019 Fine Arts Grant, Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Zurich
2018 Best Video Artwork, Madatac, Madrid
2018 Formal Innovation Prize, Eurovideo, Vidéographies Int. Video Art Association, Liège
2017 Fine Arts Grant, Canton of Zurich
2017 Winner Swiss Competition, Videoex Int. Experimental Film & Video Festival, Zurich
2016 Grand Jury Award, Best Experimental Short, Slamdance Film Festival, Park City
2016 Fine Arts Grant, Canton of St. Gallen
2016 Fine Arts Grant, UBS Culture Foundation, Zurich
2015 Best Foreign Experimental Film, 24th Berkeley Video and Film Festival, Berkeley
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS AND MOVING IMAGE FESTIVALS
2026 CH Focus: Aurèle Ferrier (Artist Focus), Videoex — International Experimental Film & Video Festival, Zurich
2025 Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin — New Cinema and Contemporary Art, Paris
2024 Traversing Landscapes, Night School / Moving Image, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai
2022 Urban Stories, Cinemateca do Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro
2021 Heimspiel, Kunsthaus Glarus
2021 The Original, the Non-place and the Copy, Architecture Film Festival, London
2021 Current Situation Exhibition, Łaźnia Centre of Contemporary Art, Gdańsk
2021 Internacional de Videoarte, Museo MARCO La Boca, Buenos Aires
2020 Anthropocene’s Interface, Athens Digital Arts Festival, Athens
2019 Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, Auditorium du Louvre, Paris
2019 VP Kyoto, Image Forum, Tokyo
2019 NewFilmmakers, Anthology Film Archives, New York
2019 A Window to the World, City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima
2019 Biennale d’art vidéo et performance /si:n/, Ramallah
2019 Video Program, MACRO — Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Rome
2019 Human-Free Earth, Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw
2018 Open City Documentary Festival, London
2018 Videoformes — Video Art & Digital Cultures, Clermont-Ferrand
2018 Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival, Hawick
2017 IDFA — Paradocs, Amsterdam
2017 Solothurn Film Festival, Solothurn
2017 Werkschau, Fine Arts Grants of the Canton of Zurich, Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich
2017 Fine Arts Grant Exhibition, City of Zurich, Helmhaus, Zurich
2017 Videoex — International Experimental Film & Video Festival, Zurich
2016 Kumu Art Film Festival, Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn
2016 Infrastructures (solo), Centre de Création en Arts Médiatiques, Québec
COLLECTIONS
Collection Bosshard, Rapperswil-Jona
Collection Canton St.Gallen
UBS Art Collection, Zurich
TALKS, TEACHING & JURY WORK
2026 Guest lecture, Production and Reproduction, Minor Art: Work and Labour, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich
2025 Jury member, Videoex — International Experimental Film & Video Festival, Zurich
2020 Co-founder, Artists’ Film Collective (association and platform), Zurich
2019 Between Art and Cinema, seminar, Master Fine Arts, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich
2019 Meet the Artist, Kino Xenix, Zurich
2018 Guest lecture, Beijing Academy of Creative Arts, Beijing
2018 Video: Traces, Spaces & Circulations, seminar, How To…, Master Fine Arts, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich
2018 Jury member, Videoex — International Experimental Film & Video Festival, Zurich
2018 Research encounter, Maritime Poetics: From Coast to Hinterland, Corner College, Zurich
2017 Guest lecture, ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), A Short Film History for Architects: Spatial Concepts in Film and Architecture, Professorship Annette Gigon / Mike Guyer (with Dr. Marcel Bächtiger), Zurich
2014–2025 Talks and symposia at various festivals and institutions, incl. IDFA (Amsterdam)
SELECTED PRESS & PUBLICATIONS
2025 Swiss Films, Line-Up
2018 Mubi, “The Future Perfect: Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today on Urban Possibilities”
2018 The Skinny, “Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival: 2018 Report”
2017 Jury statement, Videoex — International Experimental Film & Video Festival
2017 Swiss Films, Short Film Catalogue
2017 Neue Zürcher Zeitung, “Die Anarchie steckt im Heizkörper”
2016 St.Galler Tagblatt, “Aurèle Ferrier sucht nach der Leere”
2015 Stigmart Videofocus Biennial Edition, interview
— Exhibition and festival catalogues
CURATORIAL PROJECTS
Cine-Club Perla-Mode (since 2012), co-founded with Anna Hilti, Krispin Hée, Andreas Müller, and Thomas Galler — a screening and discussion series with filmmakers and artists, including Renzo Martens & Lukas Bärfuss, Melissa Dullius & Gustavo Jahn, Gisela Storch-Pestalozza, Christian Schocher, Thomas Imbach, and Cyril Schäublin. Supported by the City of Zurich.
PROJECT AND TRAVEL GRANTS / INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT
with thanks to:
Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia · Arts Council City of Zurich · Arts Council of the Canton of Zurich · Arts Council of the Canton of St. Gallen · Swiss Films · Pro Helvetia Cairo · Consulates General of Switzerland in Los Angeles, Santiago de Chile, Madrid, Mexico City, Sydney and Beijing · Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation · Volkart Foundation · Georg and Josi Guggenheim Foundation · Georges and Jenny Bloch Foundation · Olga and Ernst Gubler-Hablützel Foundation · Else v. Sick Foundation · Anne-Marie Schindler Foundation · Hibou Foundation · Casinelli Vogel Foundation · Hedwig Scherrer Foundation · Dr. Adolf Streuli Foundation · Steo Foundation · Catholic Media Centre (film support) · Patronage Fund for Young Swiss Artists · Gwärtler Foundation · Erna and Curt Burgauer Foundation
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
2027 Fragments of Failure and Disappearance (in progress), 30 min, with dialogue
2025 Claws, 18 min, no dialogue
2017 Transitions, 13 min, no dialogue
2016 Old Mill, 6 min, no dialogue
2014 Infrastructures, 23 min, no dialogue
2014 Desert Talks, 30 min, with dialogue