resumé
katia weibel (*1967) is a self-taught experimental photographer from switzerland focussing on topics and practices related to sustainability. this concerns both the footprint of photography itself and what is expressed and told with the images. her practice starts from “what is already here”, be it plants like kitchen- or garden waste (anthotypes, plant-based developpers), thrifted papers and films, plant-based darkroom chemicals, home-built pinhole cameras or old and (sometimes) crappy cameras, thrifted or even rescued from the dump.
she has a day job as deputy director of mercator foundation switzerland and she is part of the foundation’s programme team “arts.culture.transformation”. she holds a masters degree in philosophy an is currently enrolled in a post-graduated training at zurich arts university.
education
2025-26: zurich university of the arts, certificate of advanced studies: arts & design in practice, ongoing
2025: participant experimental photography festival, barcelona
2024-25: agora, school of experimentation, barcelona: History, theory, debates
2024: agora, school of experimentation, barcelona: exploring experimental photography
1988-94: university fribourg, ch, and berlin, d: master in philosophy
professional life (linkedin)
- 2015 – : mercator foundation switzerland, deputy director
- 2017 – : judge at the adminstrative court canton glarus switzerland
- 2005-15: head of childerns- and school programmes, WWF switzerland
- 1999–04: editorial director communications for children, WWF switzerland
- 1995-99: communcation officer and webmaster, socialst party of switzerland
what it means to be self taught
i got my first camera 1979, a kodak tele ektra, at age 12. in the years that followed, i spent a lot of my pocket money on film and flashes.
my first ‘real’ camera came in 1990: A practika LTL3. after a short time i switched to a minolta x700, and at the end of the nineties, i could finally afford my own darkroom. over the following years, the camera collection grew quite a bit.
i discovered experimental photography around 2015. it started with pinhole cameras, soon cyanotype was added, i started painting and embroidering photos, mishandling polaroids, shooting long-expired film, experimenting with anthotypes, diving deep in all kinds of photograms and lumenprints on expired papers and making home-brewed photo chemicals. as my day job does not leave much time for my art, it is a slow, but very steady journey.