Nela Fletcher (b. 1980, full name Cornelia Lüthi Fletcher) is a Swiss artist based in Hangzhou, China. Her work is held in public collections including Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington NZ, and the Invercargill Public Art Gallery NZ.

Fletcher's practice reconfigures familiar spaces through the body, using it as tool, subject, and way of thinking. Working simultaneously in front of and behind the camera, she positions herself within the image-making process, allowing decisions and interventions to happen responsively. This approach collapses the distance between artist, subject, and site, placing lived experience at the centre of the work.

A former professional dancer and choreographer, she now works across photography, film, drawing, and installation, exploring how bodies navigate public, personal, and internal spaces. Her practice mimics, resists, and rewires familiar environments, turning them into something more curious, more human, more absurd.

Her works often begin with physical interventions, documented and transformed into visual narratives. The result is work that feels choreographic even when it stands still.

Her drawing practice turns this same attention inward, looking at what happens inside the body. Choreographing expansive ink series on paper, Fletcher draws on medical imaging and anatomy to speculate on the invisible movement within us, systems adjusting and changing.

public research
2026 Show Me a Move 教我一个动作 | Schein Space | Hangzhou Contemporary Art Week, CN

award
2024 Merit Award | Parkin Drawing Prize | Wellington, NZ
2022 Second Prize 2022 Annual Spring Exhibition | He Waka Tuia, NZ
2021 Supreme Award | Southland Art Awards, NZ
2010 Prize awarded by the Mediathek Tanz, CH
2008 Prize awarded by the city of Zurich, category contemporary dance, CH

artist in residence
2023 COIN South, Waihōpai, NZ
2011 Tanz Tendenz & Schwere Reiter, Munich, DE
2010 Rote Fabrik Zurich, CH

dance - performance - choreography
2001-2014 performer and choreographer | Swiss independent dance scene, including Dance Company Theatre St.Gallen (2001-2005), Tanzhaus Zurich, Kaserne Basel, Theatre Basel, Gessnerallee Zurich, CH

education
2020 Master of Arts in Fine Arts, Zurich University of the Arts, CH
2018 Foundation Course, Zurich University of the Arts, CH
2000 Diploma in Dance, SBBS Zurich, CH