Our residences

Sophie Ballmer

Sophie Ballmer lives and works between Vallée de Joux and Lausanne. An artist, filmmaker, and curator, she graduated from ECAL and co-founded the art space Tunnel Tunnel in 2015, which she has co-directed since. In 2023, her film La Maison received a special mention at the Visions du Réel festival. The same year, she was awarded the Canton of Vaud Visual Arts Grant and won a Swiss Art Award in 2024.

Through film and writing, her work explores transformation, decay, and renewal, blurring the boundaries between documentary and fiction. She often collaborates with artist Tarik Hayward, developing a multidisciplinary practice that examines tensions between utopia, ruin, and reconstruction, situating the personal within a critical reflection on global capitalism and its social, ecological, and political consequences.

Her current project continues over a decade of artistic exploration around the construction of her house, which inspired exhibitions, sculptures, installations, and her first feature film. She is now developing a second film, an autofictional road movie exploring transmission, heritage, and belonging. During her residency, she is dedicating her time to writing this fragmentary work at the intersection of subjective documentary, political essay, and family autofiction, continuing her reflection on ecology, technology, vulnerability, and ambivalent utopias.

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