Elena Degen studied art history and cultural anthropology (BA/MA) at the University of Basel, where she was a student research assistant at the Department of Art History (Chair of Modern Art History, Prof. Dr. Ralph Ubl). She graduated in 2022 with a thesis on Sophie Taeuber-Arp's cross-stitch embroideries. After completing her studies, she worked as a curatorial assistant at the Kunstmuseum Basel. She has been a member of eikones since 2024.

The dissertation project is dedicated to the work of the Russian artist Marianne Werefkin (1860-1938), with a focus on her late work, which was created in Ascona from 1917 onwards. Based on the narrative paintings and the extensive written legacy, the focus of the research lies on the social relationships and the role of workers in Werefkin’s oeuvre. A central concern is to examine the artist's hitherto insufficiently researched work in the context of the social and industrial processes of the interwar period and to ask how the discursive, socio-historical and biographical conditions and circumstances shaped Werefkin's art and thinking. A particular focus lies on the figure of the worker and the concept of the “environment”: On the one hand, the project examines the interaction between the social conditions and the shared environment of the figures in order to critically reflect on the nature-culture dualism; on the other hand, it asks to what extent the works create and convey an “aesthetic of the environment” that simultaneously discusses the relationship between reality and ideal in Werefkin's works specifically, but also in a larger art-historical context.