LAS Art Foundation

A person with shoulder-length dark hair stands in a blue room, wearing a patterned red and green coat over a black shirt, looking toward the camera.

Dr Rosa Barba is a visual artist and filmmaker whose work explores the materiality of film through experimental installations, sculpture, performance, publications and site-specific interventions. Rooted in a sculptural approach to cinema, Barba examines such dichotomies as fiction and record, nature and culture, and memory and reality — states that coexist, collapse or transform through perception. Environmental, temporal and historical dimensions are recurring themes in her practice.

Widely exhibited internationally in both solo and group shows at leading institutions, Barba’s recent solo presentations include exhibitions at MoMA, New York; MAXXI, Rome; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern, London; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; and PICA, Perth. She has been recognised with several major awards, including the Zürich Art Prize, the International Prize for Contemporary Art of the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco (2015), and the Calder Prize (2020). Her works are held in prominent collections around the world.

Barba co-leads the ETH Zurich course “Understanding Light” with Prof Dr Puneet Anantha Murthy, bringing together students of architecture and physics to explore light through scientific, perceptual and artistic perspectives.