Biography

I am Larissa Tiki Mbassi, an exhibition curator based in Zurich and a PhD candidate affiliated with the Departments of History and Heritage Studies at the University of Fribourg and the University of Vienna.

In my research, I am interested in the historical links between monuments labelled as colonial, public space, and Afro-diasporic activism in the city of Neuchâtel. My aim is to understand how the construction of public space, art, and the representation of Blackness influence each other. My starting hypothesis is, on the one hand, that Swiss representations of Blackness are closely linked to current activist and artistic demands for the decolonisation of public space. And that, to understand these demands, it is necessary to interrogate the images that continue to shape the Swiss collective unconsciousness.