"Memory layers" Sculpture

Just as one can never return to the same time and place, neither memory nor our understanding of place remains permanent. This understanding lies at the foundation of Middelmann’s practice.
Middelmann foregrounds the subjective and fluid nature of memory, resisting fixed interpretation and permanence alike. This approach is reflected in her expansive use of media, including maps, discarded letters, hand-sewn textile installations, drawings, alternative photographic processes, and painting. Her work shows how memory is reconstructive, adaptive, and continually reshaped through perception.

Middelmann’s work resists archival certainty while embracing the power of personal narrative. Existing within the interstitial space between knowing and feeling, imagination and memory, her practice examines how individuals negotiate time, displacement, and impermanence. Through labor-intensive acts of handwriting, stitching, and reassembly, she reflects on the human impulse to preserve what is continually slipping away. Her sustained engagement with perception and memory is informed as much by her background in international relations as by her collaborations with neuroscientists, whose research into cognition, perception, and neuroplasticity resonates deeply with her exploration of how memory is embodied, fragmented, and transformed over time.


​In 2021, I received a grant from the Swiss government to do an artist residency in a neuroscience lab. My work is exhibited in the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. In 2021, I was invited to do an artist residency at the Jenisch Museum in Switzerland where she explored the question of memory and imagination on a 25m long piece of Gauze that was shown in 2022 at the CHUV in Switzerland. In 2022, I had three museum exhibits (the Dreilander museum in Lorrach Germany, the Kunstraum Hochdorf in Switzerland and the Museu dela dona in Spain). In 2024 I presented my work at the Westbeth art center in NYC and Coravallis Art Center in Oregon (USA). In 2026, my work was featured at the Museo del Fiume in Rome and the Palazzo Zisa in Palermo Italy. It will again be featured at the San Domenico museum end 2026.

​​​​​Born in Switzerland, Middelmann moved to New York when she was 16. After earning a degree in Creative writing and International Relations from Johns Hopkins University (with a 4 year scholarship for Outstanding Academic achievement), she worked in publishing.