Wednesday, 11 September 2024, 05 pm

The artist Olivia Abächerli and the historian Bernhard C. Schär are connected through Abächerli’s works about the repressed history of Ibu Silla. The conversation, moderated by iLiana Fokianaki (Director of Kunsthalle Bern), begins with Abächerli’s book and is then examined through Schär’s extensive academic research.

Olivia Abächerli found the diaries of Nidwalden mercenary Louis Wyrsch in the Nidwalden State Archives, which were unearthed by historian Bernhard C. Schär. Ibu Silla, also known as Johanna or Belle, was the partner of Wyrsch, who was in Dutch service in Borneo in the 19th century. While Wyrsch returned to Switzerland with their children after about 20 years, Ibu Silla stayed behind in Borneo or never came to Switzerland. In Wyrsch’s diaries, all mentions of Ibu Silla are censored, cut out or blacked out.
Abächerli’s work places these omissions at the centre and speculates on possible biographies of Ibu Silla in order to challenge the dominant narratives shaped by white men and create space for alternative, multi-perspective stories.

Conversation in English, free admission.
The book Ibu Silla can be purchased during the event (CHF 28).

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The Swiss artist Olivia Abächerli, born 1992 in Stans and grew up in Kerns, lives in Bern. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Bern University of the Arts and a Master of Arts Practice at the Dutch Art Institute in Arnhem. Abächerli has received several awards, including the Aeschlimann Forty Scholarship (2022, 2024). She is co-founder of the collective DUELL and has been organizing FLINTA raves in the queer-feminist space of the Reitschule Bern since 2021.

Bernhard C. Schär, Dr. phil., born 1975 in Pittsburgh (USA), is a professor of history at the University of Lausanne and lecturer at the Swiss Open University. Between 2014 and 2019, he was a senior assistant at the ETH Zurich. His research focuses on the global history of Europe and Switzerland as well as the history of the Dutch empire in Southeast Asia.