Biography
Susanne Weirich was born in Unna, Germany in 1962. From 1981 to 1988, she studied German language and literature at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, while also studying fine arts at the Kunstakademie Münster from 1983 to 1988. After completing her studies with the sound-image presentation "Tokyo Rose" (1989), which deals with the story of the Japanese propaganda speaker Iva Toguri, Weirich began working as a freelance artist. Her work has been shown in numerous international group and solo exhibitions over the decades. She has also taught at German and international universities since 1991.
Weirich's artistic works often have interdisciplinary dimensions, unfolding in fictional narratives, spatial contexts, architectural projects, or works related to architecture. She has realized numerous installations and public artworks. Her works are part of several public collections, including the Berlinische Galerie, the Bundessammlung, the Hamburger Kunsthalle, and the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig.
Some of Weirich's works are inspired by films. In "Trostspender" (1997), for example, she incorporated quotes from American films such as "Pulp Fiction," "Wild at Heart," and "The War of the Roses," which focus specifically on the wiping of bodily fluids, and had the quotes emanate from towel dispensers. In the photo series "Busybody" (2000), she subtitled scenes from "The Thomas Crown Affair" with quotes from Thomas Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49". In a solo exhibition in Berlin in 2007, Weirich presented the three-channel video installation "White Lies (Notlügen)," which documents five hotel management students setting a table, accompanied by a staged conversation between three women: Nicole Heesters as the grandmother, Friederike Wagner as the mother, and Klara Manzel as the daughter.
Since 1988, Susanne Weirich has worked regularly with filmmaker Robert Bramkamp. She was the producer of his film "Der Bootgott vom Seesportclub" (2005) and developed the collective narrative project "Die 100 Me" (2004-2006) with the support of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes and the TV channel Arte. In 2009, the duo created the interactive installation "Sendersuchlauf" for the Lichtfest Leipzig, a light choreography for 20 vehicles each from the car manufacturers Wartburg and Opel.
In Bramkamp's feature film "Art Girls" (2011-2013), Weirich was involved not only in the production but also as art director. In collaboration with Bramkamp and film scholar Georg Seeßlen, she realized the program "Images of the Future - 100 Years of Sci-Fi in German Cinema" for the Goethe Institutes in Beijing (China) and Seoul (South Korea) in 2019. Between 2020 and 2023, she co-directed with Robert Bramkamp the documentary "Die Ausstattung der Welt" ("Make Up the World"), which shows the daily work in three German props houses. The film premiered at the German Competition of the DOK Leipzig Festival in 2023. At the same time, she designed the interactive installation "Blickwechsel" for the visitor center of the German Bundesrat in Berlin.
In addition to her diverse artistic activities, Susanne Weirich was a professor at the Department of Architecture at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg from 2000 to 2006. In 2008/2009 she was visiting professor for sculpture at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee. In 2011, she was appointed Professor of Three-Dimensional Design and Media at the Institute for Art and Art History at the University of Duisburg-Essen, and in 2012, she was appointed Visiting Professor at the Chengdu Academy of Fine Arts in China.