Kirstin Burckhardt (b. in South Africa) is a visual artist and psychotherapist combining video and performance with sound and spoken word. Critically drawing upon her training in psychology and neuroscience, her practice addresses power dynamics intertwined with the body. Continuously questioning what defines a “body”, her artistic research focuses on interpersonal space as a locus for negotiating sensitivity, conflict, empathy, transgenerational trauma, and the complexities of healing.

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She works solo or in collaborations in which she not only seeks to work with others but to investigate the complexities of working together – in other words: as human social systems in the process of their making, or: as a measure for indeterminacy of intimacy. For instance, with Nicole Wendel she has asked how friendship can become an artistic material itself, resulting in videos, drawings and the performance “no ONE survives a real conversation”. With Lisa W Carlson she has published the book “Brutal with Love” on agency in the radical act of opening up. With her partner Mario Asef, she has founded the duo Asef-Burckhardt and has developed two ongoing projects on love as an poetic-political ecosystem.

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She studied fine arts in Hamburg (Germany), Lyon (France) and Hangzhou (China). Simultaneously, she graduated in psychology at the University of Hamburg and is working as a clinical psychotherapist in Berlin. Her work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions at KINDL Berlin-Centre for Contemporary Art, KAI 10|Arthena Foundation, Deichtorhallen/Sammlung Falckenberg Hamburg, Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, Festival of Future Nows 2017->∞, Exploratorio in Medellín (COL) and the Goethe Institut Sofia (BUL) and LA (USA). She has collaborated closely with performing and visual artists from China, Sweden, and Colombia and has received working grants by the Fonds for the Performing Arts (Fonds Darstellende Künste), ifa Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, and the city of Hamburg’s ‘Elbkulturfonds’ and ‘Arbeitsstipendium’ (working grant).

Education

2007–2014
Fine Arts (MFA), University of Fine Arts Hamburg HFBK (Hochschule für bildende Künste), École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (FR), China Academy of Art Hangzhou (China)
2008–2015
Psychology (BSc and MSc), University of Hamburg. Key areas: psychotherapy, neuroscience  

Solo, Two-person, and Collaborative Shows (selected)

2025
SHELTER-BONE, duo show with Mario Asef, Kunstverein Göttingen (G)
MOTHER-BURN, duo show with Mario Asef, MOS, Gorzow (Pol)
MOTHER-BURN, duo show with Mario Asef, WildPalms, Düsseldorf (G)
2024
SHELTER-BONE, duo show with Mario Asef, guest artists Dania Burger and Peder K. Bugge, HAUNT|Frontviews, Berlin (G)
Celebrating Brutal with Love, performance and book presentation with Lisa W Carlson, Kulturverein Max Frisch Bad, Zurich, Switzerland
no ONE survives a real conversation, Performance by Kirstin Burckhardt and Nicole Wendel with Jana Seehusen, Kongress der Gesellschaft für Theaterwissenschaften, Leipzig
Brutal with Love: book presentation, with Lisa W Carlson, Härnösands Konsthall, Sweden
Gyllenmo Studios Connects, Tjome, Norway
2023
no ONE survives a real conversation, performance with Nicole Wendel, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
May I ask you?, performance with Lisa W Carlson, Errant Sound, Berlin
Wind in den Füßen, video installation with Nicole Wendel, DE RUIT, Rotterdam
Celebrating Brutal with Love, performance and book presentation with Lisa W Carlson, Vexer Verlag / Publishing, Berlin
2022
No one survives a real conversation, collaborative exhibition with Nicole Wendel, HAUNT|Frontviews, Berlin
2019
spelling/spilling out possession – Kirstin Burckhardt performs a text by Jonathan Echeverri Zuluaga, cur. Anke Völk (l’oiseau presente), Haus der Statistik, Berlin
the movement our lips make to curl into language, Galleri Ask, Åsgårdstrand, Norway  
Invisible Spaces I, Kirstin Burckhardt & Tom Früchtl, Bar K, Berlin  
2018
» What do I feel when I feel your pain? «, MOM art space, Hamburg  
own own body own, performative video-installation with Brenda I. Steinecke Soto, Mojo Club Hamburg  
It is probited to sit, stand or lie on the autopsy tables / Es ist untersagt, auf den Sektionstischen zu stehen, zu sitzen oder zu liegen, sight-specific intervention with Lara Bogatay, Daniela Böttcher, Dinah Büchner, Marie Golücke, Sophia Guttenhöfer, Raha Emami Khansari, Nicola Riede, 05/03/2018, in the context of the conference Material Cultures of Psychiatry, Großer Sektionssaal, Universitätsklinikum Eppendorf, Hamburg
2017
small-scale spectacle, performance with Lisa Rykena, hinterconti Gallery, Hamburg  
things untold // como un cuerpo, performance with Brenda I. Steinecke Soto, Exploratorio, Medellín (COL)  
2015
TIDE潮汐, exhibition at the artist residency Künstlerhaus im Schlossgarten, Cuxhaven  
*anghu- „eng, bedrängend“ (-> Angst), art in public spaces commissioned by the city of Heide in collaboration with Birke Baumann  
2014
Folgendes zeigt: Kirstin Burckhardt, Folgendes Exhibition Space at HFBK
2012
Sicht sammeln, Kunstverein Hildesheim (cat.)

Stipends and Residencies (selected)

2023
Process funding: How to balance like a bird, collaboration with Nicole Wendel, Fonds Darstellende Künste/ Fund for the Performing Arts
2019-2022
Project funding: touching fine lines, video and publication with Lisa W Carlson, Ministry for Culture and Media Hamburg, Hamburgische Kulturstiftung, Rudolf-Augstein Foundation, IASPIS Sweden
2019
Artist in Residency to collaborate with Lisa W Carlson, KKV, Härnösand, Sweden
Artist in Residency with Anne Gathmann and Anna-Lena Wenzel, The Watch, Berlin  
Artist in Residency, Galleri Ask, Åsgårdstrand, Norway  
2018
Funding of own own body own with Brenda I. Steinecke Soto by: Elbkulturfonds, Hamburgische Kulturstiftung, Goethe Institut Bogotá, Alcadia de Medellín  
2017
One-year working grant 2017 (Arbeitsstipendium bildende Kunst) by the city of Hamburg  
Traveling grants for a research residency at the Fundación Espacio Arte in Medellín, Colombia: Institut für Auslandsbeziehung (ifa) & Behörde für Kultur und Medien Hamburg (Office for Art and Media – International Cultural Exchange)  
2016
Post-graduate program “Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojekt”, Berlin  
2015
Artist in Residency, Künstlerhaus im Schlossgarten, Cuxhaven  
2008–2015
Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (German National Merit Foundation)
2014–2015
Studio grant, 100 Ateliers für Hamburg  
2013
Residency and study grant, Karl H. Ditze Foundation  

Publications & Artist Talks

2024
InterViews, 10-year anniversary edition, “Connection”, with Lisa W Carlson, New Toni Press, 2024
2023
Brutal with Love, collaboration with Lisa W Carlson, Vexer Verlag
2021
zwischen körpern/among bodies, Kleine Humboldt Galerie, K. Verlag
2020
Something Between Us, Verlag für Moderne Kunst
2019
Interview on Body Ownership, Radiosalon für Alltägliches, radio interview with Anna-Lena Wenzel and Julia Bonn, reboot.fm  
2018
Dort, wo der Körper stattfindet, catalog published on the occasion of the Working Grant (Arbeitsstipendium) 2017 by the city of Hamburg  
Artist Talk with Ludwig Seyfarth on the occasion of the show What do I feel when I feel your pain?, MOM Art Space, Hamburg  
2017
Empathy Pain No-Pla-cebo, self-published artist zine on the occasion of the Festival of Future Nows, Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, sold at Buchhandlung Walther König, Berlin  
2016
Untitled (antlers), catalog published on the occasion of the exhibition Fraud, Fake and Fame – Goldrausch 2016, Berlin 2016  
2014
SETTLERS, catalog published on the occasion of the exhibition series The Waves, HFBK Materialverlag, Hamburg 2014  
2012
Sicht sammeln, catalog published on the occasion of the solo exhibition Sicht sammeln, Kunstverein Hildesheim 2012  

Collective, membership, advocacy

since 2023
IMHAR – Institute for Medical Humanities and Artistic Research, member
2019
I, too, part II, Was ist Kunst wert? Symposium at Kunsthaus Hamburg, member in the initiative for fair wages to artists  
since 2018
Body Ensemble, collaborative with the choreographer Brenda I. Steinecke Soto  
Gesellschaft für künstlerische Forschung in Deutschland / Society for artistic research in Germany, founding member