Mari Lena Rapprich

Mari Lena Rapprich is an artist, curator, and researcher, currently working between Bremen and Tunis. In her artistic work, Mari Lena moves between systematic drawing, overlapping lines, and experimental soundscapes. The starting point is often writing and ordering systems, to which the hand must submit. Existing systems serve as instructions for drawing and/or auditory processes, in which repetition, rhythmic movements, failure as a productive moment, and temporality are embedded. In 2020, Mari Lena published the artist’s book «Repeat» along with the accompanying tape «24:06». Currently, Mari Lena is conducting both artistic and academic research on the analogy between drawing and weaving as well as on sound in film.

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Since 2023, Mari Lena has been researching artistically and academically with her project «weaving» the analogy between drawing and weaving. In doing so, Mari Lena explores the technique of hand-weaving carpets and textiles and transforms the technique of weaving and the sequences of hand movements into other media such as paper, sound, and existing textiles. The technique of weaving connects bodily with intellectual actions and intertwines time, material, and stories. In carpets and textiles, memories, resistance, and identity are interwoven. In the practice of weaving, an archaic and often female-connoted technique manifests itself, which can be understood as an aesthetic, political, and poetic gesture. Through the rhythmic repetition of movement and weaving, lines, patterns, and sounds are formed, which gradually become perceivable. In her artistic and academic practice, Mari Lena collects textile, auditory, personal, and historical artifacts, thereby shaping a living archive of narrated, handcrafted, and physical objects. This archive also serves as an approach to and translation of motives, structures, and processes, which are taken up, transformed into new contexts, and connected with personal narratives and transmitted knowledge. This practice is at the same time a critical reflection on colonial regimes of vision, cultural appropriation, and the fragility of tradition in a globalized context. Weaving thus becomes an act of connection, but also of responsibility, as a tactile form of research with the hands, through threads and meanings.

In 2025, Mari Lena started her doctoral project «Soundscapes im Film: Eine Erweiterung des bestehenden Begriffskorpus der Filmwissenschaft für die audiovisuelle Analyse von Ton im Film» at the University of Bremen. The project introduces the concept of the soundscape developed by R. Murray Schafer and established in Sound Studies into film studies. Since the advent of digitalization, an increase in the complexity of sound design in film production has been observed. Since the 1970s, the professional field of sound designers has been emerging, leading to increasing recognition of sound design as a research field within film studies. Since then, it has become possible to describe a higher complexity of sound in film. A significant foundation here was Michel Chion’s theory of Audio-Vision developed in the 1980s, a conceptual model for describing sound and its connection to the image. Fur ther concepts of audiovisual analysis are based on this theory. However, limitations of these approaches are now becoming apparent. By transferring the concept of the soundscape into film studies, this doctoral project hypothesizes that a more precise description of the complex sound design in film and its relationship to the image can be enabled.

• Also in 2025, Mari Lena launched her interdisciplinary project «recap + listen», as an ongoing individual as well as collaborative purpose. The project functions as a space for negotiation, in which different perspectives intersect and enter into critical reflection. The project examines how we listen, what we hear, and whose voices are heard, especially in contexts shaped by power, colonization, class, and discrimination. «recap + listen» challenges established structures of artistic and academic canons and aims to make marginalized or often overheard narratives visible through dialogical practices. In doing so, personal, institutional, and ideological boundaries are reflected upon. «recap» means capturing the status quo, contextualizing it, and thereby revealing complex connections and stories, while «listen» emphasizes empathetic and active listening as a foundation for understanding, community building, and rethinking the question of who is allowed to speak and be heard. Listening becomes an instrument of solidarity, recognition, and transformation. MariLena uses her artistic-academic approach to create interdisciplinary spaces of reflection, where theory and practice are interconnected. The project appears in various formats, works with textual, visual, and discursive media, and promotes collaborative knowledge production that responds to context, participation, andexchange.