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Rise To The Sun, 2023

In the photo series Rise To The Sun Liv Burkhard took the question “Why do we leave and what do we hope to find?” inwards and back to were it all began; back to childhood, back to the Swiss countryside. She revisits the places in the surrounding nature of the house she grew up in, in hopes of reconnecting to the sense of wonder she felt, when she wandered up the creeks or ran through the orchards as a child. Instead though, she was met with feelings of nostalgia and estrangement. She quickly discovered that the innocent childhood memories were tainted by the years of teenage angst that followed. Although we will always carry parts of the landscapes, that’ve helped us build our perception of the world, within us, we will never be able to relieve experiencing them for the first time. We will never be able to see through the eyes of our child self again. This, in turn, might be the answer to the question, that lead the project and many of her past projects: We leave home, to be guided by a sense of genuine curiosity, to feel endless freedom, to make sense of the world by experiencing oneself in unfamiliar territories, just like we did growing up.

See You In My Dreams – How Can I Be A Woman Today, 2023

“See You in My Dreams – How Can I Be a Woman Today” is a semi-fictive work that interrogates how travel has been an act of liberation and emancipation in the life of Erna Burkhard, the artist’s deceased grandmother. Erna, who grew up in southern Germany during the second world war and then shortly after emigrated to the Swiss countryside, soon started traveling to the South by car, with her six children, a big tent in the trunk and her husband left at home.

Through lucid dreaming, the artist tried to reconnect with her grandmother, or what remains of her in her subconscious, in search for answers to questions she’d never asked.
The final work consists of handwritten letters, the artist addressed to her grandmother, photos from the family archive as well as three photographs taken by the artist, which were inspired by the dreams she had about her grandmother.

The Tourist Gaze, 2022

Tourism has arguably become the biggest industry of our time and its growth has been incessant since the start of the jet age in the late 1940s until 2019. It has transformed not just entire landscapes, but also entire communities, which brings forth a range of social issues and inequalities in any given tourist destination. Solutions are urgently needed, as international travels are soaring back to pre-pandemic heights.

Departing from the question of what travelers can give back to a community – other than money – Liv Burkhard created a workshop concept, which aims to foster exchange between travelers and the locals of a tourist destination. It is a bottom-up attempt at challenging the social unsustainability of modern mass tourism and the increasing alienation, which comes with the touristification of one’s hometown.

She applied her concept to the city of Lucerne, where the workshop took place nine times. The participants collaboratively came up, documented, and tested alternative city tours, which then resulted in a radical, new city guide for Lucerne. The project comes to show how the practice of collaborative gazing can contribute to a decelerated, non-passive way of traveling and co-existing.

Liv Burkhard

Liv Burkhard (b. 1998) is a Swiss artist, photographer, and filmmaker based in Lucerne. In 2022, she completed her Bachelor in Camera Arts at the Lucerne University of Applied Arts & Sciences.
Her work explores the spaces between memory and perception, the physical and the virtual, the personal and the universal. Often rooted in movement — through travel, technology, or self-exploration — her practice examines escapism not just as a longing for elsewhere, but as an ongoing negotiation with the self. Through photography and video, she creates contemplative narratives that blur boundaries between reality and simulation, intimacy and distance, past and present. Her work traces the tension between seeking freedom and confronting the inevitability of change — questioning what it means to belong, to grow older, and to navigate the expectations placed on women’s bodies and identities.

Through her visual language, the artist creates a utopian world of perpetual dusk and stillness, where faces remain hidden and beaches are always empty – a form of escapism in itself.

Location

Lucerne, Lucerne

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Awards

  • 2023Advancement Award of the Canton of Thurgau, Switzerland
  • 2022Best Shortfilm with "Erna.", Ostschweizer Kurzfilmwettbewerb

Exhibitions

  • 2021"Morning Rituals", Shed Frauenfeld, Group Exhibition
  • "The Question Project", محل تيب ةعماج Betlehem University, Palestine, Group Exhibition
  • 2022"Miren", Casa sil Punct, Falera, Solo Exhibition
  • 2023“The Worst Year Of My Life”, IPFO Olten x Schloss Wartenfels, Group Exhibtion
  • "Rise To The Sun", Alt.+1000, Photo Festival
  • "See You In My Dreams – How Can I Be A Woman Today", FotoDok Luzern, Group Exhibtion
  • "Erna.", Ahoi! Luzern, Solo Exhibition
  • 2024"Rise To The Sun", Kunstmuseum Luzern, Group Exhibition
  • "From Home To Horizons", Kunstmuseum Leverkusen, Solo Exhibition
  • "Inhabiting The Interstice, or Why We Never Dream of The Internet", AUTO St. Gallen, Solo Exhibition
  • Plat(t)form 2024, Fotomuseum Winterthur
  • 2025"Erna.", Oxyd Winterthur, Screening