Nina Staehli (1961) was born in Zug lives between Lucerne and Berlin
In her films Nina Staehli breaks with all dramaturgical conventions and challenges the viewer by deliberately disregarding cinematic norms. Her unfamiliar way of dealing with action and tension might initially suggest the conclusion that there is no recognizable narrative. This seeming impression is reinforced by the lack of any possible verbal articulation by her “Big Head” figures.
However, anyone who engages more closely with the reduction in Staehli’s cinematic works and the artist’s deliberate flow of images will soon recognize that the lack of the familiar opens up a space for their own imagination to develop. Thus each viewer constructs his or her individual film, whereby the figures with their oversized heads and their apparent forlornness become a poetic factor.
The soundtracks composed for the films, in symbiosis with their minimalist plots, set up a further level of interpretation and are at the same time an identity-creating mode of expression for the mute “big heads”.