Biografie
Dr. Julia Weber is an arts-based urban researcher and social scientist. She has an MA in Sociology, Psychology and Philosophy (Universities of Bern and Zurich) and in Fine Arts (Zurich University of the Arts). She is currently leading the SNSF project "Urban Wastelands as Ambiguous Spaces for Appropriation and Participation" at the Institute for Contemporary Art Research (ZHdK). She is also co-responsible for the platform "Die Ganze Breite" at the cooperative Kalkbreite, which focuses on participation, collaboration and transformation. Since 2012 she has been leading community-based art workshops in various social fields.
At the University of Basel she conducted research on photography, gender, body (2009-2011). At the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland and the ZHdK she was involved in developmental research in art education (2011-2017). From 2017-2020 she was a researcher in the SNSF project "Fragmented City" (Institute for Contemporary Art Research, ZHdK). In her dissertation "Loitering?! Potentials of an Urban Form of Living", she examined how situations of participatory knowledge production can be produced through social-artistic interventions (PhD cooperation ZHdK & Art University Linz). For her PhD she received the Award of Excellence 2022 of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research.
Between 2019-2024, she was a project manager in the Major-Minor Study Reform and quality responsible at the Department of Fine Arts (ZHdK). She coordinated participatory processes and curriculum development within an organizational transformation project.