Starting from drawing, Andrea Heller works with a variety of media such as ceramics, glass, plaster, and textiles. The development of her series of works is deeply informed by thematic research, her own image archive, as well as craft techniques and material experimentation. In her practice, Heller explores questions of instability and the mutability of space and landscape — particularly the role of humans as a geophysical force. She is equally interested in how humans intervene in, demarcate, or inscribe themselves into territories, as she is in the human body itself, which she considers a fragile counter-image to this destructive energy. Her works are regularly exhibited in Switzerland and abroad and are part of various public and private collections.

The drawings collected in this zine are part of an ongoing research project that led Heller to Japan last year and is closely connected to her family history. In searching for traces of a traumatic experience her grandfather had as a child, she gradually brings to light previously untold aspects and thus opens up new perspectives on memory and identity.