Talk at the Library: State Fictions Between Switzerland and Korea

A field of flowers. A picnic. Mountains in the distance. Many photographs taken by Swiss soldiers on the Korean Peninsula could almost be mistaken for holiday snapshots. Yet they were created in one of the most high-risk landscapes to this day: the Demilitarized Zone dividing the Korean Peninsula. Since 1953, Switzerland has maintained a military presence there as part of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission. Over the following decades, Swiss soldiers documented everyday life, encounters in North and South Korea, and the landscape around them. What do these images reveal about the two Koreas, and what do they tell us about Switzerland?

For more than a decade, Swiss artist and scholar Prof. Dr. Denise Bertschi has explored this visual archive through her long-term project STATE FICTION. Her work examines what the soldiers chose to see, what remained outside the frame, and how their photographs intersect with Switzerland’s self-image as a neutral actor on the international stage. In 2026, Bertschi brings this research back to South Korea with State Fictions. Beyond Blossoms and Borders, presented at the first Swiss Pavilion commissioned by Pro Helvetia for the 16th Gwangju Biennale. The exhibition turns the historical material into a living archive, inviting Korean audiences to respond to, question, and add new perspectives to images created decades earlier.

Who holds the camera, what remains invisible, and what changes when an archive returns to the place where it was created? At this Talk at the Library, Bertschi is joined by Prof. Dr. Susann Ahn, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Landscape Planning at TU Wien, and Prof. Dr. Da Hyung Jeong, Assistant Professor of the History of Art and Architecture at Pennsylvania State University. Both contributed to the book State Fictions. Beyond Blossoms and Borders, which will be at the center of the conversation. Drawing on Ahn’s research into Seoul, landscape, memory, and cultural narratives and Jeong’s work on architecture, ideology, and imperialism in postwar Asia, they will explore what these photographs reveal about Korea, Switzerland, and the histories and perspectives embedded in the archive.

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This event is hosted in collaboration with Pro Helvetia, the commissioner of the Swiss Pavilion at the 16th Gwangju Biennale in the Republic of Korea, and the Aargauer Kuratorium.

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About the Speakers

Denise Bertschi is a Swiss artist and scholar whose work examines the intersections of coloniality, neutrality, landscape, and visual culture. She is Professor of ‘Critical Image and Situated Practices’ in the Arts Academy of the Applied University of Lucerne HSLU. Bertschi received her doctorate from the Federal Institute of Technology EPFL in Lausanne, with the dissertation «Echoing Swiss Coloniality. Land, Archive and Visuality between Switzerland and Brazil» (2024). Since 2013, her long-term research STATE FICTION has investigated Switzerland’s presence in the Korean Demilitarized Zone through archival photographs, films, documents, and artistic interventions. Her first monographic publication on the project, State Fiction. The Gaze of the Swiss Neutral Military Mission in the Korean DMZ (2021), was recognized in the Most Beautiful Swiss Books competition. In 2026, she presents an expanded chapter of the project, State Fictions. Beyond Blossoms and Borders, at the Swiss Pavilion during the 16th Gwangju Biennale.

Susann Ahn is Professor of Landscape Architecture and Landscape Planning at TU Wien, where she co-leads the Research Unit of Landscape Architecture and Landscape Planning with Prof. Thomas E. Hauck. She is a landscape architect, urban planner, and mediator. From 2011 to 2021, she held teaching and research positions at TU Munich, ETH Zurich, and other institutions. In 2013, she founded Ahn Landscape Mediation, and since 2024 she has been a partner at adribo Conflict Management, focusing on alternative dispute resolution in institutional and spatial contexts. Her work integrates landscape architecture, planning, mediation, and collaborative governance. Ahn is an author and editor of academic publications, serves on juries and scientific committees, and is a contributing author to State Fictions. Beyond Blossoms and Borders, where her expertise informs the dialogue between landscape, narrative, and spatial interpretation.

Da Hyung Jeong is an architectural historian whose research examines the entanglements of the built environment, ideology, and historical as well as enduring imperialisms in the postwar period, with a particular focus on Asia. He is Assistant Professor of the History of Art and Architecture at Pennsylvania State University. Previously, he taught and held postdoctoral fellowships at ETH Zurich and Princeton University. He received his PhD in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, where his dissertation explored the emergence of architectural postmodernism in the former Soviet Union, particularly in Soviet Central Asia. His research has also been supported by institutions including the Fondation Le Corbusier, the Getty Research Institute, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He is the editor of Off-Center: Architectures of Russian and Soviet Imperialism and a contributing author to State Fictions. Beyond Blossoms and Borders.

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About Talk at the Library

Talk at the Library is a members-only series (usually, with this event being exceptionally open also to non-members) where we invite an expert to our office library for a conversation on specific niche topics on a variety of countries and regions of Asia. The program consists of a moderated discussion and subsequent audience Q&A. Participants have the opportunity interact with the experts, asking questions. The talks are recorded and made available to the public on our YouTube channel.