Heinz Nigg (born 23 August 1949) is a Swiss anthropologist, community artist, and promoter of participatory video. In 1980 he documented the outbreak of the youth riots in Zurich.
Heinz Nigg (born 23 August 1949) is a Swiss anthropologist, community artist, and promoter of participatory video. In 1980 he documented the outbreak of the youth riots in Zurich.
Nigg, citizen from Maienfeld and Zurich, grew up with two siblings in Zurich, Switzerland. His parents come from a working-class family and a farmer's family in Maienfeld, Canton of Grisons. His mother was a housewife and dressmaker, whilst his father worked for a non-profit housing association.
In 1967/68 Nigg spent one year as an exchange student in the US, where he was inspired by the artistic expression and politics of the Counterculture of the 60s – the Hippies and Yippies. [1] From 1969 to 1976 he studied history, political science, and social anthropology at Zurich University. At this time he was also an activist in the youth movement and in the rebellious local art scene. He painted and took part in group shows. During this period he wrote articles about exhibitions of Minimal and Conceptual art for the Tages-Anzeiger, and for the Kunstnachrichten, a journal of international art. [2] In 1974, he traveled to New York as assistant of Johannes Gachnang, director of the Kunsthalle Bern. [3] There he met the artist On Kawara and received a series of postcards from his project I Got Up. In 1975 Nigg collaborated with Izi Fiszman on the international art event Salto Arte in Brussels. [4] There he was inspired by Joseph Beuys, who advocated for a liberated art practice outside of galleries and museums: Art by and for everyone.
From 1976 to 1979 Nigg lived in London where he did ethnographic fieldwork on the use of audiovisual tools in Community action and Community organizing, which was published as his dissertation in 1980 in Zurich. [5] The book was widely distributed and discussed in the UK: [6] [7]
"What Nigg and Wade's research indicates is that video is a medium of rich potential, that is just waiting to be released. They make it clear that were professionals and amateurs have become dedicated to introducing some control over the usually authoritarian medium of TV, and where the monopoly of that resource can be broken down, spirited initiatives are possible. Community Media implies that low-gauge video is far from being just a toy invented to enable the nuclear family better use of programmed TV schedules." [8]
From 1979 to 1980 Nigg was a lecturer at the Ethnologisches Seminar of Zurich University. Because of a controversial video documentation about the Zurich youth movement and the Opera-House Riots he was banned from teaching at the university. [9] This case of censorship led to a wave of international solidarity with Dr. Nigg and Prof. Lorenz G. Loeffler, head of the department. [10]
Since 1980 Nigg has been active as a visual anthropologist and community artist. His fields of interest are social movements, participation in urban development, and the documentation of migration and mobility. [11] In 2017 he curated Rebel Video for the Swiss National Museum, [12] an exhibition about the alternative video movements of the 1970s and 1980s in Switzerland and the UK. He mostly works with portraits, based on the methods of Oral History, [13] and he also maintains his involvement in art and photography projects.
Heinz Nigg lives in Zurich, Switzerland, and is the father of a son (*1981).
For Nigg, do-it-yourself video continues to play a crucial role in art, politics and social movements. Now an integral part of every mobile phone, video invites participation and is an expression of the digital revolution. In his book Rebel Video and on its website, Nigg demonstrates that it is now possible to democratise the production and distribution of audiovisual messages, especially through social media. [14] In the political sphere, DIY video has become an essential tool for activism and investigative journalism. In the arts, DIY video opens up new forms of creative expression for the realisation of experimental works that, according to Nigg, often cross the boundaries between amateur art and professional artistic creation.
In collaboration with Memoriav, the Swiss Social Archives, the Media Archive of the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and Goldsmiths, University of London, Heinz Nigg has digitised and archived several video collections from the 1970s to the 2010s. [15] Nigg sees videos from this period as important historical sources, that provide insights into social movements and cultural dynamics of the time. [16] They show how video was used to make social change visible. For ethnographic urban research, video archives offer authentic representations of different communities inscribing themselves in urban spaces. Nigg also believes in their potential for media education, community work and art practices with a social purpose. Overall, he sees video archives as sites of memory. They contribute to the reflection on new media in society.
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