Mathilde ter Heijne

Mathilde ter Heijne was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1969. She studied at the Stadsacademie in Maastricht from 1988 to 1992 and at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam from 1992 to 1994. From 2011 to 2018, she was Professor of Media, Installation and Performance at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. Since 2018, she has been Professor of Time-Based Media and Performance at the Universität der Künste Berlin, where she continues to develop a practice closely connected to performance, installation, video, and participatory forms of artistic production. Ter Heijne’s artistic practice explores questions of identity, gender relations, participation, collaboration, and dialogue. Her work examines both contemporary and historical societies that differ from the patriarchal structures of the present, bringing together voices, perspectives, and forms of knowledge that have often remained marginalised. Through this approach, she investigates how cultural identities are constructed, how assumptions surrounding femininity can be deconstructed, and how identities might be rewritten through collective processes. Working across installation, video, sculpture, and performance, ter Heijne frequently develops projects that involve collaboration and participation. Rather than conceiving the artwork as the expression of a single, autonomous artistic voice, she creates situations in which knowledge and authorship can be shared and negotiated. Participation thus becomes both an artistic method and a way of questioning established hierarchies within cultural production. Her practice is informed by feminist thinking, gender studies, archaeology, and sociology, bringing together historical references and contemporary forms of social research. She is particularly interested in how material objects, embodied experience, and cultural narratives can intersect, as well as in the relationship between materiality and forms of spiritual or symbolic knowledge. Her projects often look towards the ancient and historical past as well as towards possible alternative futures, using these temporal perspectives to question established models of identity and social organisation. A central aspect of ter Heijne’s work is the creation of communities and collaborative spaces that propose alternatives to hierarchical structures. Her participatory projects challenge the conventional separation between artist and audience, instead encouraging forms of exchange in which different experiences and perspectives can become part of the work itself. At the Universität der Künste Berlin, this approach is also reflected in her teaching, where she develops performative and collaborative formats with students and explores the possibilities and limitations of performance within contemporary art. Through this combination of feminist research, performance, installation, and collective artistic practice, ter Heijne approaches art as a space for questioning inherited structures of power and representation. Her work proposes forms of artistic production based not on a single authoritative voice, but on participation, dialogue, and the possibility of constructing new relationships between individuals, histories, materials, and forms of knowledge.