Past, Present and Future

passages

Past, Present and Future 75 Years of Arts and Culture in Switzerland Two Theatre Workshops in Egypt An International Conference in India Classical Tragedy Reloaded in Albania

THE CULTURAL MAGAZINE OF PRO HELVETIA, NO. 65, ISSUE 2/2015 3 – 31 DOSSIER 32 LOCAL TIME Cairo: Two Workshops, Many Stories Arts and Culture in Transition Innovative exchanges between Swiss and Egyptian theatre This anniversary issue of Passages also features a bonus poster. It was artists. designed by 22 artists whose contributions have helped shape the By Menha el Batraoui magazine over the past 10 years, and portrays their visions of art and 34 New Delhi: Public Art culture 25 years from now. in Global Dialogue A conference in Mumbai brings together performance 3 Timeline collectives from around the Selected milestones from the 75-year history of Pro Helvetia. globe. By Rosalyn D’Mello

7 Looking Into the Past 36 REPORTAGE The birth of Pro Helvetia, in historical context. Medea Mash-Up By Daniel Di Falco A Swiss-Albanian theatre production revisits a classical 10 “Be Brief, and to the Point” tragedy. The poet and author Giovanni Orelli in conversation. By Isabel Drews (text) and Tristan Sherifi (photos) By Yari Bernasconi 40 PRO HELVETIA NEWSFLASH 14 The Meeting of the Accidental and the Planned Cultural Diversity A portrait of the multimedia artist Christian Marclay. Anniversary Publication By Aoife Rosenmeyer Architecture Biennale Swiss Jazz in Bremen

18 The Punk Dance Diva 42 PARTNER An interview with the dancer and choreographer La Ribot. Star Academy By Anne Davier By Elsbeth Gugger

22 Guerilla Tactics, Poetics, and Static Electricity 43 CARTE BLANCHE An interview with the electronic artist Valentina Vuksic. Crisis and Crossroads By Eric Vautrin By Christian Pauli 44 GALLERY 26 The Joy of Yodeling A Showcase for Artists Vocal artist Nadja Räss in conversation. Insight #1 and Untitled By Lena Rittmeyer By Daniel Karrer

47 IMPRESSUM 29 To the Artists of the Future “Do what must be done”: an artist’s call to arms. By Milo Rau

About the images: The collage portraits of the 5 artists featured in this dossier were created by photographer Jean-Vincent Simonet (b. 1991). In 2014 he obtained a Bachelor of Photography with high honours from the École Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL). In 2015 he received a Swiss Design Award for his project Maldoror. He lives in Lausanne and divides his time between commissioned projects and independent artistic experiments. www.jeanvincentsimonet.com

EDITORIAL 2 Dear Readers,

This year, Pro Helvetia has multiple anniversaries to celebrate. 75 years ago, the Swiss Arts Council opened its first small office in the historic building on Hirschengraben in Zurich, where it is still located today. 30 years ago, the first issue of Passages was published, just in time for the opening of the Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris. Reasons enough to take a trip down memory lane in this issue’s dossier section. The timeline featured in these pages revisits the main events in Pro Helvetia’s history, from its origins to the present day. In his introductory article, historian and journalist Daniel Di Falco shares his research into the political and societal context that led to the founding of Pro Helvetia in 1939, and explores the tensions between politics and culture that have shaped the Arts Council’s work over the years. Supporting and promoting arts and culture has always been central to Pro Helvetia’s mandate. For this reason, we have chosen to place artists of different generations and various disciplines at the heart of this issue, with four interviews and one portrait. The oldest featured artist is the poet and novelist Giovanni Orelli (b. 1928); the youngest, the musician Nadja Räss (b. 1978). The dossier’s last word belongs to theatre artist Milo Rau, who delivers an impassioned speech to the artists of the future. Speaking of the future, we also have an announcement to make about Passages: After 30 years and 65 issues, the magazine is taking a makeover break. We plan to return with new content and a new look in late 2016. Until then, we wish you interesting reading and inspiring cultural encounters.

The Passages Editors

Switzerland’s Spiritual National Defence First Federal Politicians, intellectuals and Cultural journalists across party lines band

Institutions 933 together to demand a policy of

In 1888, the 1 “spiritual national defence” to help Federal Art protect Switzerland from the Fascist Commission threat posed by neighbouring countries. is established. 1890 sees the founding of the A Parliamentary Motion 19 June: Fritz Hauser, a member of Late 1800s Late Swiss National Museum (in Parliament from Basel, proposes Zurich) and the 935 a motion urging the Federal Council Swiss National 1 take steps to protect Swiss identity following the rise to power of Hitler Culture, from Latin cultura: care, cultivation, agriculture. Library (in Bern). Photo: an Aebi farm machine (before 1930). and Mussolini. A week later, the Swiss writers’ association makes the same A Federal Foundation for Culture demand. 12 November: The Neue Helvetische Gesellschaft (New Helvetic Society) joins in the discussion and presents a plan for a “Helvetic Foundation.”.

938 09 December: The Federal Council publishes a Dispatch on cultural policy “concerning

1 the duty and the means of preserving and promoting Swiss culture.” It includes the idea of a federally-funded foundation for culture. Pro Helvetia Hirschen New Duties 5 April: The graben 22 21 March: Pro Helvetia proposal for In April, is assigned new duties, 939 940 a cultural Pro Helvetia 945 with an emphasis on 1 1 foundation moves into 1 promoting exchange is approved by its new quarters at and dialogue, as well as a federal decree, Hirschengraben focus on activities outside of just a few 22, in Zurich. From Switzerland. The goal: break- months before the very beginning, ing out of the spiritual and the outbreak the cooperative cultural “fortress mentality” Hirschengraben 22, Pro Helvetia’s head office of the Second council is subsidi- of the war years. in Zurich since 1940. World War. ary to the cantons 20 October: Origi- and municipalities, and operates on the An Autono- Funding for nally planned as basis of applications received. In the mous Foun- Research a private founda- early years, its budget (500,000 Swiss dation The Swiss 952 tion, Pro Helvetia francs) is divided between two groups: 949 28 Septem- National 1 is transformed one half is allocated to the “People” 1 ber: A federal Science into a cooperative division, the other to the “Army” (also decree transforms Foundation is council regulated known as “Army and Home”) division. the cooperative established. by public law. council into an Its first president First Yearbook autonomous foundation regulated is former Federal Pro Helvetia publishes its first by public law. The “Army” division is

Councillor 64 yearbook, summarizing its ac dissolved.

Heinrich Häberlin. 9 tivities of the past several years. The Pro Helvetia Law Its director for 1 From then on, the publication 17 December: The federal gov- the next nineteen appears yearly and serves as a source ernment passes a law dedicated years is Karl Naef; of information for members of par 965 to Pro Helvetia; it establishes as secretary of liament as well as the general public. 1 a legal basis for the Arts Coun- the writers’ asso- The Clottu Commission cil’s organization and activities. Pro ciation, he had The Federal Department of Helvetia’s responsibilities include: helped launch Home Affairs establishes • preserving and protecting Switzer- the debate about 969 a commission to be chaired by land’s unique cultural heritage federal cultural 1 Gaston Clottu and charged • supporting artistic creation policy. The coun- with evaluating the state of cultural • promoting cultural exchange be- cil’s goal is affairs and activities in Switzerland. tween linguistic regions and cultural to preserve “the spheres within Switzerland spiritual inde- Around the World 1 • maintaining cultural relations abroad pendence of With the exhibition “La Suisse culture” in Swit- 7 présente la Suisse” (“Switzerland presents Switzerland”) in Dakar, zerland in the 9 Senegal, Pro Helvetia supports a large-scale project on the African face of the dan- 1 continent for the first time. After having focused its support on gers represented projects in the USA and Europe, in the following years Pro Helvetia broadens by Nazi Germany its scope to include projects around the world. and its Fascist Contemporary art, Paris, 1972. propaganda. The Clottu Report For the first time in the history of its activities abroad, Pro Helvetia organizes an event series 975 lasting several months: entitled “Espace,” it takes 1 place in the premises of the Swiss Tourist Office in Paris and includes exhibitions, theatre performances, film evenings and concerts. It is In Paris In New York also the first time that Pro Helvetia The Centre Culturel Suisse opens In a national mounts a large-scale project in Paris. Its creation, and the referendum, 986 without the participation of diplomatic 985 attendant purchase of space Swiss voters 1 representatives. 1 in the venerable Hôtel Poussepin reject both The Clottu Commission publishes in the Marais district, were preceded the proposal for its five-hundred-page final report on by a long tug of war between the Pro a “Cultural Initia- the state of cultural activities in Helvetia Board of Trustees and the tive” (which would Switzerland. It recommends adding an Federal Council, or rather the Federal allocate one article on culture to the Swiss Consti- Department of Home Affairs. A petition percent of the tution, and dividing cultural affairs and donation drive spearheaded by annual federal among several administrative bodies, the francophone weekly “L’Hebdo” budget to cultural which leads to the establishment helps make the purchase a reality. funding), and the of the Federal Office of Culture in The same year sees the launch of Federal Council’s 1978. In addition, the report recom- “Passages,” Pro Helvetia’s cultural counter-proposal. mends intensifying cultural exchange magazine. Conceived for international The Swiss Insti- within Switzerland and abroad. Sug- circulation at first, it appears in French tute opens in New gestions include a focus on the pe- and German and, as of the fourth York. riphery and the creation of a proactive issue, in an English edition as well. foreign service for Pro Helvetia. A Federal Merger In Cairo The Federal Office of Pro Helvetia’s first liaison office Cultural Affairs merges opens in Cairo, Egypt. 989 with the Swiss National 988 A new funding stipulation regu- 1 Museum and the Na- 1 lates Pro Helvetia’s principal tional Library to form a new activities: supporting projects through Federal Office of Culture, grant applications, and developing charged with coordinating all its own cultural initiatives, to be called cultural activities, including “Programmes.” Examples include those previously carried out Gallerie 57 / 34.6 km (2001 – 2007), by the Federal Department of which supports cultural activities along Home Affairs. the NEAT Alpine tunnel construction Architecture exhibition in Bucharest, 1970. route, and echoes – folk culture for tomorrow (2006 – 2008), which encour- In Eastern In Geneva In Milan ages crossover between innovative Europe The Antenne The Centro and traditional forms of folk culture. After the fall Romande Culturale 991 992 of the Iron for French- 997 Svizzero 1 1 In Cape International Curtain, Pro speaking 1 opens Town Communi Helvetia takes Switzerland in Milan, Italy. A new cation over the bureaus opens in Geneva. 998 liaison office 999 Presence opened by the 1 opens in 1 Switzerland Swiss Agency for A Rise in Funding Cape Town, South is created. It is Development and 1 January 2002: Pro Helvetia Africa. responsible for Cooperation in introduces some fundamental maintaining Poland, Czecho- reforms. The most important

Switzerland’s image abroad, and for slovakia and 2002 change: the maximum amount implementing the Federal Council’s Hungary, in order that the secretariat may independently strategy on Switzerland’s communica- to use them as grant a funding application is raised tion abroad. Antenna offices. from 5,000 to 20,000 Swiss francs. Helvetia. from Pro support worldwide with www.prohelvetia.ch 2016: early in reportage multimedia a as available online be will timeline The Cape TownCape to Johannesburg. February: and for publishing support are transferred to the FOC. of Culture.the In Federal return, film Office promotion book fairs –areas previously under of the auspices biennialstion, art at and international presence the Swiss principle of cultural regions: Russia newly-defined of part its internationalAs strategy, Pro Helvetia the adopts inresults apositive evaluation Council. of the Arts 2014 2012 in regions,with each the ofbranch exception these offices of Oceania. Asia; Oceania; Africa; Long-term the Middle plans East. are made to establish 2004 take place place take events4,880 year, some this During Statistics Current for the support of up-and-coming artists, art educa art offor up-and-coming the support artists, Pro Helvetia responsibility assumes new activities, its Among Dispatchfirst on culture into come effect. and the culture of promotion the 1 January: The new federal law on Dispatch onFirst Culture the subsequent investigation by parliamentary administrative controls one-time of cut one million to Pro Helvetia’s francs Swiss However, budget. at Culturel the Centre in Suisse Paris Democracy” Swiss in results a The controversy surrounding Thomas Hirschhorn’s exhibition “Swiss- The Hirschhorn Affair The liaison in South Africa office moves from

Maja Hürst’s “New Friends” in Mumbai, 2014 Mumbai, in Friends” “New Hürst’s Maja

interactive digital media. digital media. interactive and design for coordinate support “Culture and aims Economy” to an initiative entitled addition, In scale. and culturearts on an international andtry, expand of Swiss the presence coun within the cohesion encourage 2015 support Swiss art and artists, and art Swiss artists, support plans Helvetia to Pro come, to 2016 Dispatch on culture for the period Parliament approves the second Dispatch on CultureSecond – 2020. During2020. the five years / Siberia; China; India and Southeast 2010 closes. Geneva Romande in Antenne The 2007 Delhi, India. India. Delhi, New in opens office liaison A DelhiIn New China. Shanghai, in opens office liaison newest The Shanghai In

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helvetia” is launched this same year. The online application “mypro portal additional responsibilities. includingreforms, the allocation of fundamental some undergoes to this new law. Pro Helvetia also four years. Pro Helvetia is also subject submittedbe to Parliament every andpolicy spending on culture is to of aPro Helvetia partner institute. Svizzero in the Rome status receives and The are Budapest closed. is the case for allis the member case EU states. dled through as the Zurich office, Eric Hattan and Julian Sartorius with “Musical Chairs” in 2014. in Chairs” “Musical with Sartorius Julian and Hattan Eric 2013 2009 Dispatch regulating cultural culture. From now aFederal on, lawSwiss on the promotion of first the Parliament adopts 11 The federal December: The Law First on Culture and Switzerland are to han be this region between activities joint cultural on, now From in WarsawThe office closes. Warsaw from Withdrawal

Bra in offices the Warsaw;moves to in Cracow office Europe, the

tis 2005 in Eastern in Eastern networks developing years of ten After Rome In lava, Prague Prague lava, Istituto Istituto

- Looking Into the Past

Yes, it’s him: Globi, the anthropomorphic On Switzerland’s attempt to character and his adventures serve as a parrot in checked trousers, that authenti- near-perfect illustration of the “spirit” that cally Swiss cartoon character, friend to invent its own national culture, the Arts Council was to support and pro- children, a national icon. And yet, the way and the resulting paradox for mote from 1939 onwards, and of the tan- he is standing on that balcony, perched cultural policy. A historian gled relationship between culture and the high above a sea of people, his left hand reviews the context that shaped state. In 1940, following the general mo- holding the microphone and his right en- bilization of the Swiss Army, a new Globi ergetically stretched out toward the “gath- Pro Helvetia in its early years. picture-book appeared: Globi wird Soldat ering of the masses,” as this episode in the (“Globi becomes a soldier”), in which the 1939 book is called: it is a little strange. By Daniel Di Falco parrot excels at army duty. A year later, the Globi declaims: Patriotic, with emotion / big-beaked hero joined another national Let us set the train in motion / As the mission: the victory garden campaign (An- masses join the mission / To the National of Pro Helvetia and its mandate. But, as we bauschlacht). Wie Globi Bauer wurde Exhibition. shall see, it would also prove to be the (“How Globi became a farmer”) transposed A patriotic pilgrimage, on the eve of source of the Arts Council’s problems. the Swiss romantic ideal of agricultural life war, to the Landi, the legendary 1939 Swiss The reference here is to the Geistige into children’s verses: Children, praise our National Exhibition in Zurich – and the Landesverteidigung, or “spiritual national farming friends / For on them our land cartoon character Globi is the one mobiliz- defence”: the politico-cultural movement depends / We need the farmer’s helping ing the pilgrims. The parrot on his march of the 1930s that the Swiss Federal Coun- hand / To grow our food in Switzerland. to Zurich resembles Mussolini to such an cil, shortly before the Second World War, And yet: the cartoon parrot had no extent that, forty years later, the historian adopted as a government programme. It previous political associations. He was cre- Georg Kreis would cite the scene to support was to provide an existential basis for a na- ated by the marketing department of the his theory of “Helvetic totalitarianism.” In tion that was neither ethnically, geograph- Globus department store in 1932, as an the effort to defend itself in the face of to- ically nor linguistically homogeneous: a advertising mascot for children’s events. talitarian systems, Switzerland – according common “spirit,” as it was called in those Ignatius Schiele, his inventor, was not only to Kreis – “sometimes resorted to similar days. Or, in other words: culture. To an ex- head of advertising at Globus, but also co- methods” as the dictatorships. That Globi tent that to this day remains exceptional founder of an activist youth group aimed at presents himself “as a kind of Duce” is, in in Switzerland, culture was granted a fun- combatting Fascist as well as Communist Kreis’s view, symptomatic on several levels. damental political function. At the same tendencies. Thus, in 1939 the Globi news- First, it demonstrates how a democracy, time, however, in order not to risk losing paper announced to its young readers that, through its patriotic propaganda, becomes its raison d’être, culture would have to from now on, Globi too would do his part infected by the trappings of Fascist iconog- subordinate itself to the raison d’état, to to protect the Fatherland. raphy. Second, as a character from a series political will. In the book about the National Exhi- of children’s books, Globi shows how far bition, Globi’s speech follows the one made that propaganda can reach. And third, it is The parrot gets political by Philipp Etter, President of the Swiss a textbook case of an attempt to harness There has never been any indication that Confederation. During the war years, as the culture for political purposes. This is the Globi ever received funding from Pro Globi newspaper ensured that the proper very project that led to the establishment Helvetia. And yet, this Swiss story-book attitudes were also represented in the

CULTURE 7 nursery, in keeping with the political and Federal Council’s Dispatch had already put It was not until the growth of nationalism gender norms of the times, the cartoon it even more grandly: “The idea of the Swiss during the First World War that the idea of parrot echoed the words Etter had used in nation was not born of race or of flesh, but Switzerland as culturally autonomous a radio address imparting some home of the spirit. It is surely a great and mon- could take hold. In 1922, the novelist and truths to the nation’s youth: “You boys are umental thing that on both sides of the literary scholar Robert Faesi declared that the men and the soldiers of tomorrow. You Gotthard a tremendous idea might cele- Swiss-German literature had “its own shall be loyal guards watching over our brate its incarnation and formation as a stamp” which it had been able to develop homeland. And you girls will be quiet, state. A European, universal idea: the idea as a result of Switzerland’s “political auton- hard-working women and mothers, gladly of a spiritual community of peoples and Oc- omy” and its distinctive “heart and soul.” making the sacrifices your work requires.” cidental cultures! This idea, which embod- Indeed, the country’s writers had become Philipp Etter would long be considered a watchful national father figure, and the guardian of national unity. And yet, the “As of the 1960s, Pro Helvetia gave up serving the will of conservative Catholic politician was no friend of modern democracy or liberalism. the state and began to support the autonomy of culture, His ideal was represented by the Middle thus demonstrating its own autonomy as well.” Ages and the divinely sanctioned, hierar- chical caste-based society of the Old Swiss Confederacy. He dreamt of an authori- ies the meaning and mission of our concept the driving force behind the consensus on tarian state, admired Fascist Italy, and ad- of a Confederation, signifies nothing less national culture that was institutionalized vocated within the Federal Council for a than the victory of the intellectual over the through the Dispatch of 1938. The price to more sympathetic attitude toward Nazism. material, the victory of the spirit over the be paid was a retrograde national aesthetic. flesh on the hard soil of the State.” And, according to Ursula Amrein, some What is Switzerland? Flesh? Spirit? Incarnation? That is a imitation of the very dictatorship from It was Philipp Etter that Switzerland had Catholic speaking. Or rather, two of them: which Switzerland wanted to protect itself. to thank not only for the creation of Pro Etter had written the Dispatch under the Thus, the Swiss authors’ societies, Helvetia, but also for the first declaration guidance of Gonzague de Reynold, the which had positioned themselves against on national cultural policy since the estab- leading right-wing Catholic intellectual of anything “foreign” or “un-Swiss” since the lishment of the Swiss Federal State in the day. More significant than God, how- 1920s, viewed the state takeover of the 1848. The fifty-page document dated 9 De- ever – with regard to cultural policy, in arts within the Third Reich with “a mixture cember 1938 is entitled “Federal Council any case – is the rejection of “race.” By re- of euphoria, approval and rejection” (Am- Dispatch on the Organization and the fusing to define its identity in racial terms, rein). The Swiss Writers’ Association urged Tasks of Protecting and Promoting Swiss Switzerland took a stand against the Third the Federal Council to take steps to protect Culture” (“Botschaft des Bundesrates Reich and its doctrines. If Switzerland is national culture, analogous to the German über die Organisation und die Aufgaben a nation, it is precisely because of its “lin- model. And it succeeded, winning Philipp der schweizerischen Kulturwahrung und guistic, religious and spiritual diversity.” Etter for the cause and helping to draft the Kulturwerbung”) and is considered the This, according to Etter, is what constitutes outlines of a national cultural policy. The gospel of “spiritual national defence.” Rat- “the community of the Swiss spirit.” result was the Dispatch that also created ified as a federal resolution by Parliament Pro Helvetia. in April 1939, the Dispatch established “a The originary paradox But this was not the only contradiction focus on our unique Swiss identity” as the The idea of the Willensnation – the nation within the “spiritual national defence” pro- task of arts and culture. With it, the gov- held together by an act of will – that finds gramme that was reproduced in the DNA ernment hoped to counter the growing its unity in diversity has by now become of Pro Helvetia. The definition of the very “propaganda from our neighbouring coun- a cliché. But in fact, as the literary scholar thing the Arts Council was mandated to tries.” The promotion of culture was thus Ursula Amrein has shown, within the protect – Swiss national culture – would the instrument that would “mobilize our context of the “spiritual national defence” also prove fateful. “Unity stemming from di- country’s spiritual forces and contribute to movement it was used to legitimize a versity” also meant that, the greater the will the self-defence of our state.” cultural self-image that had long been to unity, and the stricter the definition of But what is “Swiss”? What exactly is anything but self-evident. Authors such Switzerland’s cultural profile, the stronger Switzerland? According to Globi, it is a as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer or Gottfried the opposing reaction from the “federalist country chosen by God to demonstrate to Keller had agreed that there could be no and anti-centralistic forces” would be – as all other nations that, “in spite of all dif- such thing as Swiss national literature: the the historians Claude Hauser and Jakob ferences in race, language and character, determining factor was not the affiliation Tanner put it. In their words, this tug- it is possible to live together and for one with Switzerland, but with the great lin- of-war is the “originary paradox of Swiss another, peacefully and rationally.” The guistic nations Germany, France or Italy. cultural politics” and “the subversive uncer-

ARTS 8 tainty-principle of national self-definition.” discourse of national unity.” Also excluded immigrants in supposedly hospitable And: “During the first quarter-century of its were artists who took a critical view of so- Switzerland. The Swiss Embassy was not existence, Pro Helvetia’s influence and suc- ciety, the state and the aesthetic norms of pleased. There was a repeat performance cess depended on finding ways to effectively “spiritual national defence.” the following year in Moscow, with two mask this problem.” In 1946 Pro Helvetia only reluctantly other films that were critical of Switzer- supported a performance of L’Histoire du land. First, the Swiss ambassador’s wife left The limits of diversity soldat with a libretto by the Swiss-French the screening in protest. And then there But it would not be possible to maintain the author Charles Ferdinand Ramuz and a was trouble with the Department of For- cover-up forever. One day Pro Helvetia score by Igor Stravinsky; the participation eign Affairs in Bern. would even support an event abroad that of non-Swiss musicians was the stumbling Collision, conflict, controversy: all par took up the problem as its official motto: block. The Arts Council also had difficulty for the course for a functioning national “There Is No Swiss Culture” was the title recognizing Paul Klee as a Swiss artist. He cultural policy, which can only get it all of the Swiss culture festival in Thuringia, was seen as a German citizen and thus was wrong when it tries to do things right. Be- Germany in 1994. But for a long time, the not included in an exhibition of contempo- cause, as Hauser and Tanner have argued, tight corset of the “spiritual national de- rary Swiss painting organized by Pro Hel- national culture in Switzerland “does not fence” programme prevented the uncer- vetia in Stockholm in 1950. This did not es- exist.” At least, not without the normative tainty-principle from taking effect. Across cape the attention of the local press: “The pressure of the war years. The 2009 law on the political spectrum, culture was under- greatest name in modern Swiss art, Paul the promotion of culture still gives the stood as merely the extension of the con- Klee, is nowhere to be found. How could he federal government the task of “strength- servative state ideology set forth in the have been forgotten, while a whole lot of ening cohesion and cultural diversity Dispatch of 1938. A writer like Carl Albert uninteresting artists were deemed worthy within Switzerland.” The phrase is familiar. Loosli might question whether “spiritual of representing their country?” There was And yet, those few words are all the new law national defence” was aptly named. In 1943 also no funding for Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s has to say about the connection between he rhymed: “If the country’s spirit you The Visit, which the Zurich Schauspielhaus cultural policy and national identity. The would sustain, you first must give it free wanted to stage in Paris in 1956. The ver- contrast to the fifty- page 1938 Dispatch on rein.” But he remained a solitary voice. dict: the play was “un-Swiss,” “macabre,” cultural policy makes it perfectly clear how Pro Helvetia began operating on 1 No- “decadent” and “nihilistic.” For the histo- much has changed in culture’s relationship vember 1939. At first it was not, as previ- rian Thomas Kadelbach, this example with political will. ously planned, an independent foundation; demonstrates that “in the terms of ‘spiritual Our parrot Globi, by the way – the cul- until 1949 it retained its temporary status national defence’, the ‘foreign’ was not nec- tural patriot of children’s playrooms – was as a working group within the federal gov- essarily located beyond Switzerland’s bor- able to emancipate himself much earlier ernment, with staff appointed by the Fed- ders, but also referred to an artistic practice from the spirit of “spiritual national de- eral Council. Karl Naef, the first Secretary that took up a critical position toward the fence.” As early as 1946, for his first post- General, had already lobbied for the Dis- official version of national identity.” war adventure, he took a trip to Paris. patch of 1938 as president of the Swiss Writ- There, at the Grand Palais, he expressed ers’ Association. In addition, Gonzague de The path to autonomy a more playful understanding of the pur- Reynold, Philipp Etter’s mentor, helped The war was long over by then. And yet, the pose of art: Globi, with delight, surveyed / shape Pro Helvetia’s beginnings in his ca- cracks in the consensus on the unity of All the beauties here displayed / And his pacity as a member of the Board of Trustees. culture and the state forged by the federal young heart skipped a beat / For art is such Consequently, the Arts Council sup- government under Philipp Etter did not a thrilling treat. ported the Romansh language, regional begin to appear until after 1960. It took dialects, and exchange between different time for Pro Helvetia to acknowledge a Works consulted: Ursula Amrein: “Los von Berlin!” Die Literatur- und areas of Switzerland. In 1942, on the other more open society and a broader definition Theaterpolitik der Schweiz und das Dritte Reich. hand, it refused support for a project on of culture. Eventually, however, the Arts Chronos, Zurich 2004. Waltraut Bellwald: Globi – ein Freund fürs Leben. Swiss-Jewish history, because “the history Council did manage to free itself from the Die Erfolgsgeschichte einer Reklamefigur. Orell Füssli, and character of Judaism are hardly suited shackles of 1938. As of the 1960s, it gave up Zurich 2003. to intensifying love for the country or serving the will of the state and began to Claude Hauser/Bruno Seger/Jakob Tanner (Ed.): Zwischen Kultur und Politik. Pro Helvetia 1939 bis strengthening the consciousness of a increasingly support the autonomy of cul- 2009. Pro Helvetia/NZZ Libro, Zurich 2010. shared national identity.” The Dispatch of ture, thus demonstrating its own auton- Georg Kreis: Vorgeschichten zur Gegenwart. Ausgewählte Aufsätze, Band 2. Schwabe, Basel 2004. 1938 had emphasized religious diversity, omy as well. but that extended only to diversity within In 1972, for the Expo in Montreal, For further information in English: www.mirroroftheworld.ch Christianity. In this vision of “homeland” the Arts Council put together a film pro- there was no place for Switzerland’s Jews. gramme that included Siamo Italiani, Daniel Di Falco is a historian and a journalist. And this, according to Ursula Amrein, was Alexander J. Seiler’s documentary film He writes for the Bund newspaper in Bern. only one of the “unspoken drawbacks to the about the problems experienced by Italian Translated from the German by Marcy Goldberg

CULTURE 9 Giovanni Orelli, 87, author

GRENZEN 10 Giovanni Orelli in his country house near Airolo CULTURE 11 iovanni Orelli, your work enjoys near-unanimous I don’t want to seem like a pessimist, but when I look around critical acclaim, and several of your books are al- today I see an increase in barbarism, the triumph of chatter and ready considered classics of Swiss literature. How opportunism, and politicians who are looking for followers and does all of that affect your writing? personal opportunities rather than taking care of their constitu- I wouldn’t want to swear to it, but I do believe that a ents. This also affects language, which continues to grow poorer. Gcertain kind of success, in the sense of approval or appreciation We need to stop singing the praises of the present time, and re- from a number of readers, does have an influence. Economic suc- member to pay more attention to the past; for instance, to the cess, on the other hand, is not something with which I’ve ever reck- fact that people write much less than they used to. The result is oned. As the Romans used to say: carmina non dant panem. Poetry a worrying lack of precision. Economic and political interests doesn’t put bread on the table. seem to take precedence over human needs. When I was young, Can that kind of positive critical the farmers in our region were consensus also be dangerous for “Be Brief, always pragmatic and serious a writer? when it came to the interests of As far as I’m concerned, hardly, if our community, regardless of at all! Success is a funny thing; it’s and to the their political beliefs or personal all about the difference between implications. Doing good was appearance and reality. You can tolerated, even praised. listen to anyone you want, but ultimately you will always be con- Point” Has the time come for a new scious of what you have done, and The poet and novelist Giovanni Orelli “break” to be made by the what you are trying to do. is one of Switzerland’s most important younger generations? Hardly. When I was young and Your first novel L’anno della val- Italian-language authors. In this interview, made the transition from con- anga (“The Year of the Ava- he shares his thoughts on success, servatism to socialism – under lanche”) was published in 1965. opportunists and formative encounters. the influence of Gramsci, among It can be seen as emblematic of others – I felt I was doing some- the break with an older genera- thing necessary. Today I sense a tion of Swiss-Italian literary fig- By Yari Bernasconi certain indifference. Members of ures like Francesco Chiesa or the youngest generation seem to Giuseppe Zoppi. Together with other writers, including Felice go through school with an eye to the economy and to their future Filippini, Giovanni Bonalumi, Plinio Martini, Alice Ceresa and salaries, more than anything else. Anna Felder, you shook up the staid, provincial literary scene, with its taste for the idyllic. These were “the choices of a gen- Let’s come back to literature. According to an old cliché, eration,” as a 2013 edition of the journal Quarto put it. What Swiss-Italian writers are caught between two distinct led you, at the time, to make the choices that you did? realities: that of Switzerland, the country in which they live, L’anno della valanga emerged almost like a diary. It was a way of and that of Italy, the country whose language and culture trying to express and understand what was happening at that time. they share. Does this truism still hold today – if ever it did in It was an act of adherence to reality: looking the people around the past? me in the face, listening to what they had to say. Beyond that, it’s Of course it does. Italy has always attracted me, for many reasons. gratifying that this kind of “break” was also experienced by other First of all, because of the culture that was born and developed people, and by society – in our case, at least, in a small part of Ital- there. There are the works of literature by giants Dante or Mon- ian-speaking Switzerland, as well as in a small part of Italy and the tale. The artworks, from Giotto to Morandi. And also the sculpture, rest of Switzerland. In any case, I leave it to others to say how the music, etc. Then there are the Italians themselves, for better things are – or how they are not, which is perhaps an even greater (the majority?) or for worse (the minority?). Take the people of pleasure. Bergamo who, during my childhood and youth, came to make hay with us during the summers. Or the Italians I got to know later, Do you think the generations that came after yours also tried to at university and afterward. I could mention many names. But if steer things in a new direction? someone asked me about my biography I would reply, like I don’t think so. And in saying that, I’m not letting myself be fooled Mandelstam: It is enough to tell of the books I have read – and by those rare cases of linguistic hijinks that are simply meant to there have been quite a few. shock, or to earn applause from the easily satisfied. And, I would add, the books you have written, of which there And yet, the social and political situation has changed a lot over have been quite a few as well. How has your relationship to Italy these past decades, and so has the cultural context. changed since the 1950s and 1960s?

ARTS 12 It’s hard for me to say. Of course, many Italians who praise our It’s always by chance: one thing leads to another. Sometimes I country while they are in Switzerland forget or ignore us very interrupt what I’m working on to start something else, and then I quickly once they have returned to Italy. Those, too, are forms of forget the first one for a while. But it’s always out of the need to opportunism. Nevertheless, the integrity of some makes it possi- express something. I once made a comparison between writing ble to build bridges between Italy and Switzerland, even today. and sporting competitions: writing a sonnet is like running 100 metres; writing a novel is like doing 50 kilometres. And the choice, And what about the relationship between Italian-speaking for the writer, also depends on the richness or the urgency of the Switzerland and the rest of the country? I’m thinking here subject. about your symbolic decision to donate your papers to the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern. As for “breadth of knowledge” and cultivated writing: that It was a political gesture, in order to say: “We too exist.” But it also clearly has nothing to do with mere pedantry or the fashionable goes both ways. It’s important for that gesture to be made in both use of quotation. Your relationship with the literary tradition, directions. from the classical to the modern, is as deeply rooted and lively as can be. How did this continuous dialogue develop, and why? It was an act of adherence to reality: looking the people Let me put it this way: we counsel begin- around me in the face, listening to what they had to say. ners to master their profession with seri- “ ousness, and young writers to learn to write “well,” although there are quite a few What is your relationship to younger writers? And what kind of misunderstandings” about what “writing well” means. In any case, relationships did you have with established authors when you it is important to pay close attention to writing, and to re-write as were a young writer? often as necessary. This is why it’s worth reading the great writers With a few minor exceptions, I have never had significant relation- of the past. Dante, for me, is number one. ships with younger writers. Nor, for that matter, with “established” writers. If someone sends me something to read, I always do, and We spoke about irony earlier. It is often accompanied by a kind I respond honestly and tell them what I think. As for myself, in- of literary playfulness, especially in your poetry. Should we see stead of naming writers – although there were some who helped irony as an instrument for reading reality? me a lot, like Vittorio Sereni – I’d prefer to recall the teachers I have Absolutely. Virgil says to Dante: “Speak, and be brief, and to the encountered. To name just one, as an example: the historian Al- point.” That pointedness is part of irony. It is also used by the peas- bino Garzetti. When I went to Milan for my university studies after ant in conversation, in order to strike a certain biting, scathing, having taught school for several years, I planned to write my the- amusing tone. I’m reminded of the anecdote about the visitor from sis on a writer I loved, Italo Svevo. But my history professor con- the city who tries to ingratiate himself with a local farmer by verted me to philology and to writing a thesis on some early Chris- asking, “My dear Sir, what shall I call you?” To which the farmer tian authors, Church fathers (Cyprian, Cassian, Hilary, Gregory) replies: “Call me what you like, but don’t call me late for dinner.” and their fourteenth- and fifteenth-century popularizers. It was a choice that took me out of the twentieth century – though not completely – and plunged me into issues that would prove fruitful to my cultural development.

When your oeuvre and your writing are discussed, certain aspects are always evoked: the breadth of your knowledge, your commitment to social issues, your thematic richness, irony and linguistic experimentation. Does this strike you as an accurate portrait? Are there other aspects of your work that are important to you, but are rarely mentioned? It’s a concise portrait, but a fair one. I might emphasize the irony. Giovanni Orelli (b. 1928 in Bedretto) is a novelist, poet, As for the last part of your question, I’m always afraid of boring my literary critic and translator. He has received many awards for his work, including the Gottfried Keller Prize readers. Boredom is probably the number one enemy for those in 1997 and the Schiller Prize in 2012. An English who write. I’m speaking here of concerns, not of results: I’ll let translation of his 1991 novel Il sogno di Walacek was published as Walaschek’s Dream (tr. Jamie Richards) in others judge the latter. 2012. He lives in Lugano.

Yari Bernasconi (b. 1982 in Sorrengo) is a poet and You have written, and continue to write, both prose and literary critic. His most recent collection of poems is verse, not to mention essays and translations. How and when entitled Nuovi giorni di polvere (Bellinzona, Casagrande, does one genre prevail over another? Is it always a deliber- 2015). He lives in Bern. ate choice? Translated from the Italian by Marcy Goldberg

CULTURE 13 meet Christian Marclay at the Aargauer Kunsthaus in Aarau, Busy finding his way, Marclay knew of other Swiss artists, such as as the final preparations are being made there for his ex Not Vital, also living there, although his involvement with organ- hibition Action (on from 30 August to 15 November 2015). izations like the Swiss Institute in New York came later. “I’m It is the first time in a few years that he has exhibited in Swit- Swiss, and I’m American. A lot of people think of me as an Amer- zerland, and he is dealing with a barrage of journalistic ican artist; in the US they may think of me as Swiss. These days Irequests with impressive diplomacy and good humour. Action is it’s easier to deal with that because art is so international.” Marclay silent: this is not unusual for an art exhibition, but is in marked remained in New York until 2007, when he moved to London. “It contrast to The Clock (2010), the mammoth work that established doesn’t matter where I am… I use my environment a lot in my Marclay’s international fame. For that tour de force, twenty-four work. And I like travelling. I like the city, enjoy the country too.” hours’ worth of film and television Nonetheless, his American home clips selected for shots of clocks or remains a particular inspiration: “I references to the time were woven miss the intensity of New York and together to form an extraordinary I need once in a while to go and re- collage of images and sounds that The Meeting charge my batteries there. But New always corresponds to the exact York has changed a lot. When I was time of day where it is being dis- there in the early 1980s it was so played. Prior to The Clock, the art- of the cheap. I didn’t really need a real job ist was no unknown; a retrospective to pay the rent. We all lived very exhibition initially shown at the simply. Now if you’re a young artist UCLA Hammer Museum in Los An- Accidental you need Pro Helvetia, or you can’t geles in 2003 travelled to the Seat- do it!” tle Art Museum, the Kunstmuseum Big cities have offered Marclay Thun and the Collection Lambert and the opportunities to develop his work in in Avignon. But after The Clock was both art and music milieus over the shown at the Arsenale at the Venice last three decades. If coverage of the Biennale in 2011, where it was Planned artist’s work has focused on major awarded the Golden Lion, it went works and exhibitions, he person- on to draw unheard-of audiences in An encounter with Christian Marclay, ally picks out the 1985 work Record venues worldwide, with more than the peripatetic multimedia artist with Without A Cover as a key moment 40,000 visitors during just one Swiss and American roots. for his practice. The title tells all: month in 2013 at MoMA New York the vinyl recording of Marclay spin- alone. I sense that Marclay is happy ning other records was distributed to be starting new conversations By Aoife Rosenmeyer without any protective packaging at after all the attention The Clock all. Damage to the record surface, garnered. The work had “enormous and by extension the sound it would success but obscured some of my earlier work and made it produce, was inevitable, and each version became unique, a con- difficult to focus on the newer,” he observes. cept embracing abuse to the medium that many vinyl collectors struggled with. “Even in this show I feel that some roots of that re- Expanded horizons cord are in here. Accepting the chance elements and allowing The phenomenon of blockbuster shows and the frantic cur- something to evolve; not thinking of an artwork as finished and rent-day attention economy are just two aspects of city life that finite but as something that can evolve and change.” have changed since Marclay first made New York his home in the late 1970s. After studying at the École des Beaux Arts in Geneva, Crossover collaborations he moved to the USA to do a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Massa- Marclay never defined himself in terms of one discipline, and his chusetts College of Art. An exchange semester at Cooper Union in work across media anticipated contemporary museum practice. New York, with teachers including Hans Haacke, was decisive. His “Luckily people let me do things in both fields. Music maybe less horizons of what art could be expanded. “It was a crucial moment, so, because I’m not a composer or a musician in a traditional sense because I discovered so much that year.” Little surprise that Mar- and the music world is more conservative, while the art world is clay gravitated back to the Big Apple as soon as he completed his more open. People enjoy the crossover now … This is what I’ve al- degree. “New York at the time was buzzing with creativity, there ways done, but now it’s become acceptable to make music in an art was so much going on.” In the midst of this he had to learn Eng- space.” If one factor was significant in making this happen, he iden- lish, too. The era of punk and do-it-yourself, with artists blazing tifies the rise in the role of video art. “Suddenly it’s acceptable to new trails, felt very different from the relatively homogenous Swit- have sounds in a gallery, it wasn’t just silence. That has since zerland he had left behind. It was a time when artists were unlikely opened up doors for sound-based art.” As sound has come into the to be lumbered with student debts, and could enjoy independence. art space, so too have artists increasingly become involved in mu-

ARTS 14 Christian Marclay, 60, artist

Christian Marclay setting up his exhibition at the Aargauer Kunsthaus

CULTURE 15 GRENZEN 16 sical and theatrical collaboration. The Ether festival at London’s Effects. His young assistants wanted to create sophisticated ani- Southbank Centre is one of the platforms that now promote mations, but he would dumb it down. “Too fancy! I want it simple, disciplinary intermingling; in 2012 it featured Marclay’s work stupid, just basic… to retain the fact that they are just fragments Everyday, in which experimental musicians and a brass band in- that are cut out.” Investment in a medium can lead to new works terpret a film score. too: “You find new ideas that might adapt to that process.” Marclay Marcel Duchamp’s influence is often mentioned in relation first became involved with silkscreen printing when working on a to Christian Marclay’s work, and there are certainly parallels to series that sampled a section from Andy Warhol’s Electric Chair find. Duchamp is the father of the readymade, and Marclay, who series. Warhol used two versions of the same image, one a tighter is an admitted fan, unites multiple facets and traditions of work- crop. The larger perspective includes a sign in the execution cham- ing with found objects and collage. His references are not only ber saying “SILENCE” and Marclay honed in on this to create a from fine art: he also adopts sampling from popular music, and new series of prints. Half a dozen years later, Marclay found an opportunity to return to the technique with It’s about accepting the chance elements and allowing his Actions series (2012 – 2014), combining painterly gestures – which can indeed be something to evolve; not thinking of an artwork as finished noisy when at their loosest – with cartoon “ and finite, but as something that can evolve and change. onomatopoeia printed over the impacts of ” the paint. “The Abstract Expressionists on found footage from film and video. The facility in combining di- one side and [Pop Art’s] mechanical reproduction of silkscreen. verse elements – which Marclay has demonstrated not only in film, Taking two art movements that are in opposition in history, and but also with works on paper, animation, works on canvas that forcing them back together, one on top of the other.” unite painting and screen printing, and performances in which The meeting of the accidental and the planned could also be musicians interpret his works – can now be recognized as ahead representative of little ironies of how culture is communicated and of its time. The engagement might start on the surface, but Mar- digested. When The Clock was shown at the Venice Biennale, the clay makes his collages resonate. The Abstract Music series labelling system proclaimed him “Christian Marclay, American,” (1988 – 90), for instance, is a series of paintings on record covers. although he had represented Switzerland at the same event in Marclay found albums that used images of paintings to sell the 1995. As a result, his second participation in the international music, then added to them so that only painting remained. On the exhibition initially garnered little Swiss media attention. “People surface we see abstraction; in the background rumble questions have such a short memory! This whole national thing – in Venice about how music might be expressed in paint, about music and they play it up so much, it doesn’t make sense any more.” commerce, and how record companies position their artists by reference to other art forms.

The medium and the process Yet if today it seems like anyone can be a DJ, or edit or compose with little prior knowledge of technique, Marclay is an unexpected advocate of skilled craft, whether digital or analogue. Even though he often adopts an outsider position, having never learned to read or write music, for example, he gets to know a process in order to subvert or distort it. “In punk, it’s a cliché, but to ‘do it yourself’ is important. Doing it yourself will lead to a different result. I like to know what’s involved in the process of something. I know if I get involved I will find ways to misuse the process. If you’re too interested in a medium, if that’s what you do and wake up every morn- ing thinking about, the work will be too much about the medium itself. The medium has to be at the service of the ideas. This is especially true with digital media, where one can get caught up in the seduction of a new medium. I prefer works where you don’t think about how it was made. You can enjoy it for how it moves Christian Marclay (b. 1955) is an internationally you and makes you think.” acclaimed multimedia artist and composer. Born in the United States and raised in Switzerland, he He describes how he created the piece Surround Sounds studied art in Geneva, Boston and New York. He is (2014 – 15), a work consisting of four synchronized projected ani- currently based in London, England. His exhibition Shake Rattle and Roll will be on view at the mations, where onomatopoeic utterances cut out from comic Staatsgalerie Stuttgart from 16 November 2015 strips and scanned seem to be thrown around the walls. The work through 20 March 2016. www.staatsgalerie.de

is silent but has a noisy dynamic, as the visual volume builds Aoife Rosenmeyer is a Northern Irish art critic and and ebbs: movement that was generated using the software After translator based in Zurich.

CULTURE 17 La Ribot in her studio in Geneva GRENZEN 18 La Ribot, 53, dancer and choreographer

CULTURE 19 hat did you want to do at the age of fifteen? to exist and grow over time: a lack of political will above all, but At age three, I already wanted to be a dancer! I also a lack of networks, festivals, researchers, journalists or train- started dance classes at fourteen, in my neigh- ing courses. bourhood in Madrid, with a classical dance teacher who put on amazing shows. I left for So you decided to go solo. For financial reasons? WCannes at eighteen, to study with Rosella Hightower. By then my Not only. Leaving my company was a radical break for me. Mainly, childhood goal had become an altogether mature decision: I was I wanted leeway for my own work to evolve. Solos are ideal for totally serious about becoming a dancer. thinking things out. With my Distinguished Pieces (Piezas Dis- tinguidas), I opened up a wider artistic and choreographic terri- In the 1980s, was it necessary to leave Madrid to become a tory, in plastic terms but also poetically and politically, as well as dancer? a form of thinking better suited to interdisciplinary relations. In Spain, with the exception of Spanish folk dancing, dance was The objects I created were technically simple. Dance represented not a priority. I really like Spanish dance, but it just isn’t my thing. one means of expression among others. It was then that I truly be- Above all, I wanted to get away! I came a contemporary artist. I de- took courses in Germany, New veloped a discourse devoid of all York, and Paris; then I came back linearity, working instead on the to Madrid and started developing The Punk frame, the duration, the idea of my own work. fragments, the author-actor-spec- tator relationship. I also chose my Were the conditions in Spain Dance Diva stage name: “La Ribot.” Adjoining conducive to developing choreo- “the” to my name may seem a bit graphic projects? The dancer, choreographer and visual diva-ish, but in Spain it is a popu- I was very young when the Social- artist La Ribot has been a transformative lar choice. To me, “La Ribot” has a ists came to power in Spain for the conceptual and baroque ring to it: first time, in 1982. In the wake of figure in the performing arts for both punk and cultivated. the democratic transition, every decades. In this interview with Passages thing began exploding: life itself, she discusses her roots in 1980s Madrid, When did you come to Geneva art, culture, the youth. Festivals her journeyman years in London, for the very first time? mushroomed, both official and un- In 1995, when Gilles Jobin and derground, and artists from other and her current activities in her chosen Yann Marussich, the co-directors countries were openly recognized. home base, Geneva. of the Théâtre de l’Usine invited Isabel Gonzalez, who represented me there. They had spotted me Pina Bausch, Carolyn Carlson, and By Anne Davier in Girona, where I put on one of Trisha Brown in Spain, took to in- the first13 Distinguished Pieces viting various French companies to shows. They were setting up a pro- Madrid. Every time Isabel invited French choreographers to dinner gramme featuring a generation of more marginal choreographers at her home, she invited us, the Spanish dancers, to join them. whose works, at the time, were not considered to be truly “dance.” That’s how I met Jérôme Bel, who was dancing with Bouvier- Obadia, and Mathilde Monnier. Had people already begun associating you with the performance trend? Is that when you created your own dance company? Well, we did widen the choreographic field and for me, that’s what I founded the Bocanada Danza company in 1986, together with contemporary dance is all about: borrowing strategies from other the dancer and choreographer Bianca Calvo. We began working disciplines and turning them into something else. In the early with writers, musicians and dancers – including Olga Mesa and 1990s, only a few places granted any recognition to what we were Juan Dominguez. We enjoyed experimenting and taking ad doing. Girona with Ana Rovira, the Institute of Contemporary Arts vantage of the lively lifestyle and cultural explosion that Madrid, (ICA) in London with Lois Keidan, Nikki Millikan in Glasgow, Cis and all of Spain, was experiencing during the 1980s. Everything Bierinckx in Salzburg, Mark Deputter and Gil Mendo in Leuven remained to be invented, tried out, changed. However, the way and Lisbon, and later Berlin. A small and young network, but very French ballet companies were set up – around one particular cho- active. When Gilles and Yann took over at Théâtre de l’Usine, they reographer and his or her distinctive artistic language, with the found themselves at the heart of a European movement. Here in goal of further developing that style with the help of state subsi- Geneva, a lot of things were happening. dies – was not feasible in Spain. We did have several magnificent artists, and ways of managing individual companies, but all of that How did Geneva react to your work? never jelled into an identifiable artistic movement or a decisive It was great! Our audiences were young and enthusiastic, ready to cultural policy. Too much was missing for something like that laugh. Humour has always been my way of overstepping any codes

ARTS 20 or conventions, of carrying things ever farther. I was working with It was mainly Gilles Jobin who wanted to leave London: he dreamt people my age, the programming was incredibly exciting, we all of having a permanent company, which was an impossibility in spoke the same language. Generally I like to feel like a foreigner London. Gilles enjoys politicking “in the Swiss fashion,” meaning wherever I am, but in this case I was happy to feel like I belonged within a set territory from which artists can make themselves to a family. It really changed my way of seeing dance. Something heard. London is incredibly vast, with thousands of words flung to generational developed, in a concrete, active, and politically-aware the wind. As for me, my recollection of Geneva dated back to my vein. Our shared goals, wanting to develop projects and make them years at L’Usine. In fact, however, Geneva had changed and, per- known to the public, linked us together. Gilles and I also fell in love haps, so had I. I began teaching at the Geneva University of Art and with each other during this period. Design (HEAD), creating a department linked to the performing arts. For me, that was an interesting change of course. Until that And yet, despite all the enthusiasm in Geneva, you ended up time, I had enjoyed the liberty of a bird. All of a sudden, I became leaving for London. linked to an institution, to academia. Not that it kept me from Gilles came to live in Madrid, thinking he would find the Spain of growing. On the contrary, I felt like I was free to spread out into the 1980s, but that was not the case. We headed for London, where different disciplines and sites: museums, galleries, cinemas, thea- I had been invited. But I must have visited Switzerland thousands tres. That is what Switzerland enabled me to do, by lending me of times during our nine-year stay in London. I gave many per- support to develop my work. formances in Zurich, Fribourg, Lucerne, Lausanne and Geneva. Still and all, my work was considered overly radical. During the Where will you be directing your efforts in the coming years? 1990s in France, dance programmes based on performance or Choreographic thought. That is, practice and reflection fueled by dance and contemporary theatre, drawing For me, that’s what contemporary dance is all about: on specific strategies belonging to our visual culture which are based on aesthetic, borrowing strategies from other disciplines and turning philosophic and political considerations. “ them into something else. There needs to be a continuing interest in ” bodies, in the perfoming arts, and in their visual arts strategies attracted little interest. I even began getting intrinsic relationship with space and time. My latest projects have invitations for guest performances at mime shows. It was not un- me excited as well. For one thing, I will be exploring foreign ter til the end of that decade, in 1999, that Jobin, Bel, Le Roy, myself ritory by working with film. I also plan to continue my Projet and others of our “neglected” generation received an invitation distingué, which is very broad. I intend to remain in Geneva, where to perform at the Montpellier Dance Festival. In 2000, things I feel comfortable. My younger son fits in well at his school, and really started changing: we gained more visibility, attracted the his older brother is studying horticulture. And I will be teaching attention of critics and theorists, and appeared in publications. at HEAD again. Even the French began taking notice. During this same period the Madrid gallery owner Soledad Lorenzo, an exceptional woman, added me to her roster, thus confirming my status as a visual artist. Today, the pieces in question belong to several public and private collections.

Was there a dynamic alternative scene in London ready to welcome you? Lois Keidan was the real godmother in promoting Live Art in London. So yes, there was an emerging, dynamic scene there. But during our first year, things were iffy. It was not easy. We were thinking: “Let’s go back to Spain, we’ll never make it here.” Just then Lois Keidan introduced us to Judith Night, the director of Artsadmin, where the production and the management of artists are part of the same network. The organization, with its seven to The artist and choreographer Maria Ribot, aka La Ribot, was born in Madrid in 1962. She studied classical ballet, as well as modern eight managers for some fifteen artists, lent us – Gilles and myself and contemporary dance. She has toured extensively in – much appreciated support. Eduardo Bonito was our producer. Switzerland and abroad, and is currently based in Geneva, where she teaches dance and performance. http://www.laribot.com One of the great periods of my life! Little by little, we joined the English networks and things started really moving for me. My own Anne Davier was born in Geneva in 1968. She studied art, dance and performance, and currently works for the Association pour la humour is quite Anglo-Saxon, and my Distinguished Pieces be- Danse Contemporaine (ADC) in Geneva. She is co-author (with came an international success. Annie Suquet) of a history of contemporary dance in Switzerland, to be published in September 2016.

Which brings us to your arrival in Geneva in 2004. Translated from the French by Margie Mounier

CULTURE 21 he scene is a period apartment in Zurich. The windows concert was later, in 2007. I started playing live because I was stuck are open, the sounds of summer float into the room without an installation to present. Since then I’ve been grouping from the street outside. Valentina Vuksic is playing an my activities together under the heading of “Tripping Through extract from the current version of “Tripping Through Runtime.” I’ve become increasingly interested in the software Runtime.” Arranged on a stand are four laptops, a that’s out there, especially operating systems. I collect them asso- Tsound mixer, induction pick-ups, an antiquated floppy disk ciatively and record their electromagnetic activity as sound. drive, and cables. Vuksic boots up the computers and runs micro- phones over the keyboards, then uses the mixer to readjust the Do you describe yourself as a musician? levels of the signals. Chirping, whirring and pulsating sounds from No, though I do perform experimental music. Initially I was a bit deep within the digital devices emerge from the loudspeakers. wary of venturing into new territory. Now I think coming to mu- Quaint-looking programming messages flash by on a black and sic from another discipline is very important. I try to approach white screen. This is the equip- playing the computers with a ment Valentina Vuksic will be us- similarly open mind. A concert is ing a few days after our interview, a status report on an ongoing when she performs at the Disno- Guerilla process, not an end product. vation pop-up festival at Mos- That’s also why I prefer small, in- cow’s Strelka Institute. Tactics, timate venues. “Harddisko” is the work that What do you call your work? Is made you famous. It’s an in- it music or media art? stallation that produces sounds Poetics, and At first my work was presented in from powered hard drives using the context of media art, later as induction pick-ups. How did experimental music. It wasn’t you come to make music in this planned that way; that’s just how rather unconventional way? Static it happened. In any event, the I began studying new media at sounds are the most important the Zurich University of the Arts medium for me to reach an au- (ZHdK) in 2001. As part of a se- Electricity dience. I deal with the space be- mester project on modding, we tween hardware and software as were instructed to artistically She is a media artist with a degree in a physical location. That’s my ‘modify’ software or hardware. computer science, and a Munich artist’s material. At the same There were hard disks lying native now based in Zurich. Valentina Vuksic time, I want to develop my own around with their casings re- approach to digital technology. moved. I hooked them up to the does not call herself a musician, mains to see how the read head but she does keep giving concerts. So how do you approach digital moves. I wanted to enhance the technology, as an artist? mechanical sounds it produces. Interview by Christian Pauli Computers are not anonymous In an electronics store in Zurich pieces of equipment. Companies I came across some induction and developers have written pick-ups dating from the 1950s, which I still use to this day. In- themselves into them. They live a physical existence at a specific stead of sound waves, they record the voltages created by electro- place, and they are used by people who themselves have a physi- magnetic fields. They were originally developed to bug telephone cal presence. That’s the idea I pursue in my work. I start at the conversations. Interestingly, the telephone adapters picked up sig- software level, which is initially conceived as separate from the nals from programs stored on the hard drives. This hard-drive physical reality of the devices. When the software is executed, it choir is the result. I felt it was important to manipulate the oper- is also in a specific reality that becomes audible via electromag- ation and characteristics of the individual hard drives as little as netism. For that reason, I’m very much inspired by experiments possible. I simply turned them on and off; I didn’t access the data. from side channel analysis. It’s a branch of cryptanalysis that in- volves extracting useful signals from the physical emissions of You initially studied computer science in Stuttgart before mov- electronic devices. For example, fluctuations in the mass of con- ing on to media art and then to music. When did you first play ductive components in a computer casing provide information live? about processing. Edward Snowden’s revelations have shed an That’s right, I don’t have a musical background. After working with entirely new light on experiments that might have seemed aca- hard drives in “Harddisko,” I turned to random access memory demic a few years ago. (RAM) for my 2006 installation “Sei Personaggi Part 2.” I used the Linux operating system to write a software piece for RAM. My first Do the devices you work with have a character?

ARTS 22 Valentina Vuksic, 41, electronic artist

Valentina Vuksic in the studio in Zurich CULTURE 23 ARTS 24 ”

I wouldn’t say “character,” but they have specific characteristics. Does that imply a specific social relationship to technology? And they change with use. I’m not dogmatic about it, but I do very much see my artistic work as a counterpoint to the consumer-oriented market for electronic Do some computers make better instruments than others? devices and apps. My needs aren’t dictated by the devices and op- I can’t work with computers that are connected directly to the erating systems the industry tells me to use. I try to develop my mains. At 230V you hear very little of the more subtle changes in own approach.

I try to approach playing the computers with an open We’ve all become slaves to electronic mind. A concert is a status report on an ongoing process, gadgets. What about you? Until a year ago I didn’t have a smartphone. “ not an end product. Then I got myself a Jolla, one of the few ” smartphones with an open-source operat- power consumption resulting from software execution. The static ing system and no apps pre-installed. As for programs, I have a soft electricity from the power socket drowns out everything. spot for Linux, because it stands for transparency and no-frills access. But I also have to adapt to the needs of a job. I stay away It seems to me that chance plays a role in your work. from social networks. As an artist with two paying jobs right now, As regards the result you listen to, that might be the case. But it I can afford to. isn’t true for my work, which begins with a clear starting point. For the performance in Moscow, for example, it’s the floppy disk If you wanted to live entirely from your art, that would no “Tinfoil Hat Linux.” It’s a small operating system that was created longer be possible? in 1998 by people who wanted to protect themselves against mind No, definitely not. control and surveillance by electromagnetic radiation – a goal that has become startlingly relevant again these days. Starting with the floppy disk, I develop a theme – here it’s security and insecurity – and look for other appropriate operating systems. Only then do I transfer the tools from it onto computers from my own personal arsenal and pick the ones that sound good, in other words multi- faceted. I’m now starting to experiment with executing the tools and moving the induction pick-ups like an instrument.

Thirty years ago, punk music championed the subversive principle of “do it yourself”: thumbing your nose at conventional careers and market structures and doing your own thing in your own way. In some ways that applies to me. I want to give the computer a new function so that I can experience it in a different way. Compared to my conventional work as a programmer it was a huge adjust- ment to make, but it was also very liberating. Studying at a university of the arts showed me a different, open and yet critical way of engaging with technologies.

Have you heard of Voice Crack, the experimental duo from St. Gallen? They’ve made the concept of “hacked everyday electronics” world-famous in the electronic music scene. But Nor- bert Möslang and Andy Guhl have travelled in the opposite direction: they came to media art from freely improvised music. That sounds interesting. I know Norbert Möslang, but not the duo. For me, artists such as Martin Howse and his work “PromiscuOS,” where an operating system is freed from all control mechanisms, Valentina Vuksic (b. 1974) studied computer science in have been an important inspiration. Stuttgart and media art at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). She has been working as a developer and artist in Zurich since 2006. trippingthroughruntime.net Would you say you are adopting guerrilla tactics: using programs, tools and instruments for purposes they weren’t origi- Christian Pauli is head of Communications and Publications nally intended for? at the Bern University of the Arts (BUA/HKB). I like the mix of guerrilla and poetics. Translated from the German by Geoffrey Spearing

CULTURE 25 hich prejudice about yodeling bothers you and in seven places at once. But when you’re singing, you’re com- most? pletely in touch with yourself. It’s a kind of meditation, and it just For a long time, it bothered me that so many makes you feel good. The people in my courses agree. people associated yodeling with right-wing politics. Fortunately, things now are quite different It sounds like a mindfulness seminar. Wthan they were as recently as ten years ago. Politics and culture are Yes, it is kind of like that. You can’t sing when you’re stressed out. both so fundamental. But it’s dangerous when politics co-opts culture. That’s what happened when yodeling was appropriated for You also offer workshops for companies. Does yodeling help patriotic cultural initiatives during the Second World War. I try to people develop as a team? keep the two apart. When a team learns to yodel together, it’s usually pretty new for everybody. The big boss is on the same level as the trainee; the But yodeling is something for old people. hierarchy disappears. So the people in a diverse group can bond That’s simply not true anymore. I’m often surrounded by young with each other quite quickly. Beyond that, you can get a group to people. Just this summer, I ran a yodeling camp with a lot of city sound good in a pretty short time, so people feel like they’ve kids. Their parents didn’t want an- achieved something. ything to do with yodeling, but now the kids are getting into things The rejuvenation of yodeling has their parents once rejected. And The Joy of also been bolstered by 27-year-old many of the people I teach are Melanie Oesch, who recently won around my age. A transition is re- a prize with her folk-music group ally taking place, even if it’s a bit Yodeling on Swiss-German television’s hard to see from the outside. pop-music contest. What do you She wears traditional costumes but loves think of her? Other seemingly old-fashioned musical experiments: vocal artist Nadja She sings at a very high level. Per- Swiss traditions, such as the na- sonally, though, that style doesn’t tional wrestling championship or Räss on going back to her roots, market- do much for me. If you ask me if the card game Jass, are now being herself, and imagining the future of there’s a style of music I don’t like, coming popular with young peo- Swiss folk music. then it’s the Schlager, when tradi- ple again. Have you noticed this? tional music goes pop. But Melanie Of course. Even if it’s just because Oesch is grounded and down-to- By Lena Rittmeyer the media like to take the idea and earth. That’s what yodeling needs: give it a cool new spin. You can see authentic people. it, say, in how a folk-music TV show like Potzmusig gets a facelift and now has a young moderator. The Do you distance yourself from such approaches to traditional media have really helped show traditional music in a new light. music? No. But folk-pop is really not my world. I do like to go to a com- Does yodeling need a new image at all? pletely traditional event once in a while, where there’s a good I wouldn’t say we absolutely have to get through to young people old-fashioned round of yodeling and accordion. right now. Things change because people promote them and because there’s a demand for them. But the day people stop signing You combine yodeling with jazz or classical music, and you per- up for our yodeling camp, we’ll stop running it. form with vocal artists from Asia or Africa. What draws you to such experiments? How do you explain the return to tradition? It’s mostly that they’re a challenge for my voice. Well, bell bottoms were once fashionable, and then they dis appeared, and at some point people started wearing them again. And how does the yodeling scene respond? It’s the same with traditional music. Of course globalization has At first, people did look at me funny. But many people know that something to do with our becoming more conscious of our roots. traditional yodeling is also very important to me. It’s often said that The participants in my courses keep telling me that when they’re traditionalists are stubborn and narrow-minded. Over the last few abroad, they get asked if they can yodel. Then they realize they years, I’ve often had the feeling that they respect what I do. Some don’t actually know their own customs at all. That’s why people people have even said they admire what I’m able to do with my don’t go belly dancing anymore – they go yodeling. voice, even if it’s not their cup of tea.

But why yodeling, of all things? Does anything go in the New Folk Music? Singing in general is something you can do to get a sense of your- It’s wonderful to have artistic freedom. But you can only develop self. We live in a fast-paced world; people are constantly plugged in further as a musician after you’ve also gone back to your roots.

ARTS 26 Nadja Räss, 36, musician

Nadia Räss before and during a concert in St. Gallen CULTURE 27 That’s how it is for me, too. After I’d delved into the old form of Folk musicians often have a close relationship to their audi- so-called “natural” yodeling without words, I had ideas for new ence. Do you? pieces again. I think I can sometimes seem a bit distanced, which can make me appear arrogant. But I’m not like that at all. I’m basically quite Have mainstream musicians always taken you seriously as a sociable, if a bit shy. People in the audience often think I must yodeler? know them all, because they saw me beforehand on stage. But it’s I’ve never had the feeling I wasn’t being taken seriously. Perhaps just not like that. it would’ve been different fifteen years ago. Musicians are very tol- erant of each other. As a yodeler, you just have to be up to the task, What are your hopes for yodeling in the future? just as you would with an instrument. When I perform with a clas- I think it would be great if someday people could major in yodel- sical orchestra, I expect the first violinist to know how to play, too. ling at music school.

As the director of the music festival KlangWelt Toggenburg, Why is that important? you’re involved with Swiss culture as well as music from other All too often, amateurs teach amateurs. There’s a demand for yo- cultures. What is the attraction for you? deling courses, but there just aren’t enough trained teachers. In I have a great deal of artistic freedom here. But the themes are the yodeling scene, though, people are afraid that studying yode- always rooted in tradition. It’s exciting when national boundaries ling would turn it into nothing but an academic subject. But I don’t disappear. At the last festival, a children’s choir from Madagascar think so. In fact, it would give yodeling a broader foundation that sang for a week with schoolchildren from the Swiss village of Alt would help it evolve. I think it’s too bad there’s such an anxious St. Johann. The children could hardly understand each other. But attitude about it in the yodeling association. by the end of the week, they were so moved by the whole experience that they were crying. What is it that people are afraid of? That yodeling will be turned into something “classical.” Even now, Can yodeling connect people across cultures? at yodeling festivals, you can sometimes hear yodelers who’ve had This kind of singing – that is, this way of working with the vocal vocal training and sound more polished than usual. I understand registers – can be found all over the world. What all these tradi- what people are worried about, but even archaic singing styles can tional singing styles share is the attempt to produce sounds that be taught. The goal of a course of study in yodeling should be that are pure. Personally, I think singing is a fundamental human need, a yodeling student can sing both a quirky traditional Jutz from and that’s what connects us. Muotathal and a modern yodeling song. The point is to have many approaches. What role has support from Swiss cultural institutions played in your career? Are yodelers worried about no longer being able to keep up with At first I made a living solely from teaching and performing. singing techniques? Support from foundations only came later, and in connection with Perhaps. When I was still teaching Schwyzerörgeli [a traditional particular projects. I had to learn that an artist must also think Swiss accordion], I had a similar experience. I was one of a group about business; I’ve always done that with my projects. I’m a mu- of teachers who wanted to introduce normal music notation and sician, but also a businesswoman. write the music down in music books. So we organized a meeting for all the accordion teachers, and there was so much resistance. What do you mean by that? These teachers were afraid that something was being taken from I teach, I publish sheet music, and I market myself to a healthy them; they make their living teaching, after all. extent. You can also market yourself too much, so that you aren’t focused on your art anymore. For me, thinking in business terms Is there something you also wish for our society as a whole? also means making an exact schedule when I’m planning pro- I wish everybody had the chance to make singing a part of their jects. That’s not always easy, because good ideas often come lives. It doesn’t have to be in a choir; you can also sing at home for unexpectedly. In my career, I’ve never done anything to please yourself. Singing just makes you happy. It releases endorphins. anybody or be more successful, but only what has really chal- lenged me personally. And some of the things I’ve done have been Nadja Räss (b. 1979) studied vocal pedagogy at the Hochschule Musik pretty weird. und Theater Zürich (now part of the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK), and is one of the most versatile yodelers in Switzerland. She is the artistic and managing director of KlangWelt Toggenburg and In June, you won the show-business award Prix Walo and dedi- the founder of the annual International Yodeling Symposium. cated it to the yodeling scene. Don’t you enjoy receiving praise www.nadjaraess.ch for yourself? Lena Rittmeyer (b. 1985) is a freelance journalist based in Bern. She Of course I like it when what I do gets noticed and appreciated. writes about music, theatre, and pop culture for various publications, including the newspapers Der Bund and Tages-Anzeiger. But I’m not that excited about prizes. If I’m on stage, I’d rather be yodeling. Translated from the German by Andrew Shields

ARTS 28 To the Artists of the Future

It’s not easy to say something relevant “Do what has to be done”: will be exacerbated even more in the next about the future, for the simple reason that A timely call to arms from decades because of climate change. It will visions of the future age so quickly: they be intolerable. I think it is the task of the are primarily cladding, a transposition of Milo Rau, one of the most artist to cast light on this double-blind: the present. Take, for instance, Michel important contemporary namely, that our prosperity and our free- Houellebecq’s novel Submission. His vi- German-language dramatists. dom mean slavery, civil war and oppres- sion of a meeting between Salafism and far- sion in Africa, the Middle East and, of right, anti-Islamic movements was super- course, in other parts of the world as well. As told to Alexandra von Arx seded the minute it was published. Current That is the law of global capitalism: import events had taken a different direction, so- and export of everything, of goods, people ciocultural issues had undergone a funda- and wars. mental shift. Statements about technical progress are basically the only thing that full-time job bashing populism. But who Acquiring experience comes true in novels of the future. Science approves of xenophobia and intolerance in Among progressive, liberal artists it has fiction novels at the end of the nineteenth art circles? Everybody seems to have gone long been dogma to espouse the European century predicted a flight to the moon and into hysteria mode, trying to reassure Union – especially in Switzerland. And that the rise of the automobile; 1920s Russian themselves and each other that they are means tolerating the contradiction that futurists envisioned computers and today’s okay and on the “right” side. It never oc- the EU is obviously not “good” but in fact biotechnologies. And George Orwell pre- curs to artists that the realpolitik they are a bulwark of economic interests. The EU dicted a society of total surveillance. But in championing for Europe – a Europe of exists because the nation states of Europe every other respect, they were wrong. You prosperity, tolerance, safety, strong gov- can no longer promote the interests of our can’t predict humans and society; you can ernments and freedom of opinion – inevi- continent. Europe is a colossus, a massive only predict technological advances. tably calls for a brutal border regime. Eu- colossus of power: too big to fail. At least rope’s wealth is directly proportional to that’s what its functionaries hope. So we The real thing the deconstruction of the Near East and have to find new approaches to dialectical At the moment, I’m a bit worried that art Africa. Collapsing governments and thinking in reference to Europe and to the has taken on the job of decorum. When I streams of refugees are not a side effect; world. The only way to do that is by acquir- look at my Facebook account, I see that for they are the real thing, the very prerequi- ing experience. Artists have to become the past few months everybody’s been busy site of our wealth and our freedom. And travellers again. They have to move around posting photographs of the horrors taking that’s the problem: the very continent that in the world; they have to distance them- place on the borders around Europe. wants to be humanist is putting an end to selves from their own country, their own Everybody is launching projects for the humanism worldwide, by virtue of those continent. Distance in time and distance streams of refugees and they’ve all found a good intentions. I think this contradiction in space, which is often the same thing, of

CULTURE 29 course. A NASA study predicts a climate Europe, China and the United States. In unsubsidized projects or when I lead panel catastrophe by 2075. We cannot imagine Central Africa you can see the truth about discussions about how much video should that because it’s 60 years away. As long as I the NGOs, the EU and even the UN. You see be used on stage. You have to be pretty can’t imagine it – physically or mentally – the truth about this continent that is cur- damned careful not to end up being a cul- it doesn’t affect me. The same applies to rently in the thrall of self-gratifying com- tural practitioner instead of an artist, a Africa. Economic genocide in the Eastern passion. Only outside of Europe can you refined consumer dealing with such vital Congo – the portent of our times – doesn’t become an anthropologist of European issues as to whether or not you should be affect me as long as I’ve never been there, thought and practice. Just as you have to using two or three video screens on the never lived or worked there, in contrast to what we did in the Congo Tribunal. That’s my point: artists have to start travelling, in “We have to make it possible to really envision the their imaginations and in reality. Into the past, the future and to other continents. catastrophe that is happening right now, beyond They have to establish closeness across pity and beyond fear.” distance, which may, in fact, be the dialec- tics of global art. They have to work out modes of cognition for a world that is leave Switzerland and then come back stage. And if I get an additional actor, am I totally globalized in economic terms and again in order to really be able to say some- going to have to apply for more funding, or where closeness only exists in private. thing about it. It’s always so incredible to how should we go about it? me to discover how enlarged and distorted All of this is obviously part of art, too, The key to the future things are when seen from close-up. Art- its daily bread you might say. The history Brecht said that if you take a picture of a ists often react to their countries like sons of art, like all human practice, is ultimately factory from outside, you haven’t said any- who have never left home: self-righteous, an automatic and unconscious reflection thing about how it works. If you want to be cynical and focused on irrelevant details. on its economic foundations. If you live in able to do that, you have to enter the fac- You don’t get to know your parents until a rich country, then you’ve got rich art; if tory, walk around in it and talk to the peo- you move out and then come back again you live in a poor country, then you’ve got ple working there. That’s the only way to and make peace. Only then do you recog- poor art. And that extends to the most ad- find out about the great tragedy of the fac- nize them and, at the same time, yourself vanced formal ramifications. Three quar- tory worker or rather about the tragedy of and your own limitations. That’s the old ters of a year ago I had a conversation with our times. And that’s what artists have to trick of “thick description” through de- an Iranian artist. Activism was a big thing do: invade today’s engine rooms and make tachment. in the arts at the time. Beauty and self- something out of them. We have to make reference were out. Everyone wanted to it possible to really imagine, envision the The task of art organize demonstrations and smuggle ref- catastrophe that is happening right now, These problems surface most clearly when ugees into Europe – to be active. She said beyond pity and beyond fear. Artists can I give courses on art, as I recently did in to me that beauty was political and poetry think of themselves as chroniclers or actu- a workshop at the Venice Biennale. A lot a weapon in Iran. For her, activism was ally take action. They can describe utopias of artists get hung up on minimal distinc- uninteresting, “old-style,” dating from the or dystopias, which is ultimately a question tions, a formal “small-small” ends up being 1970s and 1980s. In other words, you’re of character. Whatever the case, it’s a ques- terrifically important. We looked at the na- always part of something, you’re always tion of understanding the transition we’re tional pavilions where wonderful, but only reacting to a situation, only you don’t usu- going through right now.I keep saying that artisanally interesting works were on view, ally realize it. And that’s the key task of Europe really lies in Central Africa, in the and thought, “You’ve been given such a art: to make unconscious knowledge and Ukraine, in Syria and in northern Iraq. If I great political opportunity and that’s what unconscious doing conscious and there- want to know something about Europe, I you make out of it?” Those pavilions fore morally and politically questionable. have to go to Moscow, Bukavu or Aleppo should be flooded with reality, with horror There was a time when journalism and rather than Brussels. The only thing I’ll and beauty, with people and things and scholarship did that job, and even politics. find in Brussels is administrative offices thoughts! With utopias. But you go to Just think: forty years ago there were still and hypocritical discourse about feasibil- work in a business for couple of years and political parties that wanted to overthrow ity, tolerance, inner European reciprocity all your hopes vanish. You don’t know the system, that were aiming to create a and good fellowship. But in Central Africa why you started working to begin with – completely different world! Since there I will see this same Europe naked because you just work. And I keep bashing my are hardly any investigative journalists an- only there do I see how the politics of raw head against the wall in institutional de- ymore, since politicians have become materials really works. And what counts bates. Like the debate on realism in thea- functionaries and scholarship is groaning today are raw materials: coltan, tin, gold tre. Or how passionate I get about the end- under the yoke of Bologna, this constant and biodiesel. They are key to the future of less battle between municipal theatre and journeying in space and time, this defamil-

ARTS 30 iarization of things closest to us has be- sist only in the administration of globali- only wish for the artists of the future is that come a primary task of art. zation, then art has to move into that arena they do not under any circumstances bow I read something wonderful about the as well. In the eighteenth and nineteenth to the constraints of their fears. I wish “refugee crisis,” as the current cycle of mi- centuries, when the idea of the nation them the strength to put their lives on the gration is dubbed these days. Namely: Your emerged, writers were still firmly locked line in order to understand the world, in compassion is all well and good and your into localism. A lot of countries didn’t even order to understand humanity, in order to welcoming attitude is a good thing. But have a standard language. Goethe wrote in understand why we walk straight into the the words you invent and how you feel are the local dialect of Frankfurt. Then the abyss with eyes wide open – and how we totally irrelevant because what’s happen- glorious idea of the nation hit the fan and could rescue ourselves. ing is completely independent of you and suddenly people thought of themselves as Because if we don’t do that, we are your will. The catastrophes are coming – French or Polish, Italian or Swiss. Now lost – and deserve to be. So do what is nec- the environmental, human and philosoph- that we have launched into the age of em- essary, even if it’s dangerous. Do what has ical catastrophes. “The world” is as indif- pires, nationalism has to morph into some- to be done. We have no idea about the ferent to the collapse of our civilization as thing congenial to that age and artists have times we are living in: we know not what it is to the extinction of another species of to take that step, too. The anti-nationalism we do. Forget the art scene. Only do things spider. Our feelings don’t count anymore, and anti-populism of the last decades just that are really necessary. people don’t count anymore. Who’s watch- aren’t enough anymore. Negative nation- ing and what they’re thinking subjectively alism is still nationalism. We don’t need a Milo Rau, born in Bern in 1977, is the artistic director of the International Institute of Political is not relevant anymore either, only what’s European utopia, we need a global one. Murder (IIPM). As a writer and director, he produces happening objectively. That’s a complete political pieces, most recently The Dark Ages, What needs to be done a narrative drama; Althussers Hände, a volume of reversal of the earlier realistic perspective. essays; and The Congo Tribunal, a film project. Maybe what we really need is a new gener- But art will never be power politics. Asking He won the Swiss Theatre Award in 2014. ation in order to bring about what I call “what has to be done in order to change Alexandra von Arx is the Managing Editor of “global realism.” A generation that does things” is a question of power and politics. Passages.

not cling to the old mentality, that doesn’t Art cannot answer that question in terms Translated from the German by Catherine Schelbert think exclusively in terms of post-Second of realpolitik, but only symbolically. Artists World War or post-1989 or post-9 / 11 but are there to open people’s eyes, to pave the rather in terms of the potential of history way; they are not politicians. Art and power per se. Because now what’s going to hap- do not go together; that’s the philistine pen to humankind really is at stake. truth. I can envision all the things that could be done to treat Africa fairly. I could A global utopia even begin doing them, all the more so be- So as artists, I really think the time has cause, as an artist, I had the chance to come to stop clinging to the dominant travel in Africa for a year, addressing in- “small-small” and tackle the big questions. credibly complicated questions and organ- The cultural scene is incredibly national in ising a tribunal in the midst of the Civil orientation. It has struck me, for instance, War, which stood in for the tribunals that

“Negative nationalism is still nationalism. We don’t need a European utopia, we need a global one.”

that things happening in Germany are of actually should be taking place. And I no interest in Switzerland, and vice versa. didn’t work with actors but with the actual That’s a relevant observation given the fact people involved, the real actual people. I that opening up to Europe is the first step. was able to create a reality that is real, that European thinking is also provincial and is impossible, and I was able to do that only actually even more provincial, in many because I was an artist and not a politician. ways. As I said, the EU is an administrative Had I been a politician or a journalist, I construct and not a social truth. There’s would’ve been wiped out after a couple of only one inner world and it’s in that one weeks. Instead we dragged army generals single room that artists have to operate. If into court. We exposed the crimes of the the economy goes global and politics con- biggest companies in the world. So my

CULTURE 31 LOCAL TIME

SAN FRANCISCO NEW YORK PARIS ROME CAIRO JOHANNESBURG NEW DELHI SHANGHAI VENICE

Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council, maintains a global network of branch offices which serve cultural exchange with Switzerland and support worldwide cultural contact.

Two Workshops, Many Stories

CAIRO

Two innovative drama programmes brought together Swiss and Egyptian theatre artists.

By Menha el Batraoui – Every project has land to select suitable workshop trainers, a history. In the theatre, rehearsals are of- whose working methods would match the ten more stimulating than the resulting students’ level of experience. The search performance. Likewise, the way a work of yielded three specialists: Peter Schelling art develops over the course of a workshop (Zurich), Marco Cantalupo (Lausanne) and can be just as interesting as its ultimate Philippe Olza (Geneva). They were then in- presentation. In the creative process, moti- vited to spend five days observing theatre at vations and intentions emerge, and choices work in a variety of representative locations are made one way or the other, until the in Alexandria (Cairo already having more final decisions are taken: choices give rise than its fair share of cultural and artistic to other choices. There are opportunities activities). These were: the Dramatic Arts to review what has just been done, to hear department of the Academy of the Arts; the intonations repeated in different ways, to Drama Studies department of the Faculty discover a gesture that illustrates the spo- of Literature, the Palace of Culture, and the ken word or deliberately contradicts it. In Centre Rézodanse – where the workshop short, you follow the gradual construction was held under the logistical auspices of of the piece step by step, like a medley of I-act, the International Association for Cre- colours upon a palette. With this perspec- ation and Training. Based on their obser tive in mind, we look at two theatre projects vations, the specialists were able to devise recently carried out in Egypt. and create exercises that were tailor-made rather than off-the-shelf: a step up from the First project: Lies ready-to-perform materials offered by facil- The story began in 2012-13, when Pro Hel- itators in workshops of barely a week that vetia’s Cairo office created an innovative make no impact on the participants, who

two-year workshop programme for theatre ape the movements as if they were mere Large photo: Mahmoud Abou Zeid. Small Marco Cantalupo artists. A search was conducted in Switzer- physical exercises, without understanding Swiss playwright Urs Widmer’s The End of Money in a vivid adaptation directed by Adel Adawy and staged at the Culture Palace in Qus, Egypt

LOCAL TIME 32 the thinking behind them. To further this their own bodies, their own anatomies, the group went on to present Lies and innovative method, the workshop would muscles and articulations, their bodies in Songs and Other Commodities, a perfor- span two years, with three sessions of three space and in relation to the other bodies mance based on improvisation guided by weeks each. around them. Each body possesses its own Peter Schelling. And in October 2015, with As a result of social taboos, the main momentum and rhythm, its relationship Marco Cantalupo, it began rehearsing The problem Egyptian actors often face is the with the voice and spoken word: the body Conference of the Birds by the Persian relationship to their own bodies. To relieve as it breathes and relaxes; the innate re- mystical poet Farid-al-Din Attar. them of this weighty burden, the workshop flexes that come into play as it moves; the organizers came up with a complementary reflexes that are acquired; even its inertia Second project: Saïdturge workshop on “the body in movement” – when motionless or sleeping. The partici- In 2014, at Asyut in the Saïd region of with Peter Schelling focusing on gesture, pants became aware of the body as it ex- Upper Egypt (an area where cultural activ- singing and improvisation, Marco Canta- presses itself, but also as it acts collectively, ities are in short supply) the Ahmed Bahaa lupo on choreography, and Philippe Olza in symbiosis with a group. At the work- on acting with masks. Each activity encour- shop’s conclusion, the participants formed aged the participants to come to terms with the Lies Collective – lying being the chief their own identity: by becoming aware of appeal of the theatre. The following year,

Marco Cantalupo’s choreography workshop with the Lies Collective

Eddin independent cultural centre held the second edition of its theatre festival, featuring Olivier Chiacchiari’s play La preuve du contraire (Proving the Opposite), directed by Abir Ali, who simultaneously ran a workshop based on the Swiss dramatist’s work, entitled Saïdturge. Her aim was not just to provide an introduction to writing, but also to teach participants to analyse a text from the West, to understand how it is struc- tured and thus to develop a dialectical syn- thesis with what seemingly differs from Eastern culture. The idea was also to read a text in a variety of ways and re-read it from different perspectives, thereby foreground- ing the role of the dramaturge as mediator between written text and scenography. This workshop, lasting a few days, was followed by a longer one on Das Ende vom Geld (The End of Money) by Swiss playwright and novelist Urs Widmer. Again, the text was presented not as an ideal to emulate, but as material to be worked like dough and Swiss playwright Urs Widmer’s The End of Money in a vivid adaptation directed by Adel Adawy and staged at the Culture Palace in Qus, Egypt moulded into different forms. Transposed

LOCAL TIME 33 to the theatre, the concept involved telling the same story from many different Public Art angles: deleting a scene here, cutting out a character there, reordering the sequence of events – always provided that the new in Global Dialogue logic could be defended. All together, the result was an ex- tremely rigorous and effective mental exer- cise of a kind that young Egyptian theatre NEW DELHI professionals are not used to. And, as Abir Ali points out, it is important to remember Draft, a year-long exchange project that examines art in that the text comes from a strongly capi- the public sphere, was launched with an international conference talist world and had to be transposed to a developing country. In all, the workshop in Mumbai this past June. offered a set of strategies designed to appre- hend the ideas of the “other”: to understand and accept them, but without following By Rosalyn D’Mello – The sun had already the politics of home and belonging was them blindly. Next October, Abir Ali will sunk into the Arabian Sea as we marched played. A common passion for art may direct a performance of Lukas Bärfuss’s The through the bylanes of Chuim, a historic have united us during the last two ses- Bus with a group of new participants. Mem- village ensconced in the throbbing heart of sion-driven days, but in the thick of this bers of the previous workshop will play the the Mumbai suburb of Bandra. We had pre-monsoon party, the specificities of assistants, and the director will work along- journeyed from Colaba, the city’s southern what each city-based artist collective could side scenographer Frieda Schneider. Marco end, in a private bus through peak traffic, and would groove to was the source of Cantalupo will also be invited to lead a soaking in the chaotic sights, feasting on much passive-aggressive contention, until choreography workshop. the frenetic pace of life in India’s financial Shaina Anand, CAMP’s co-founder, slipped The most important aspect of these capital. We had come together from around in “Choli Ke Peeche” (“What Is Beneath two workshops is their modular structure. the world for the three-day opening confer- Your Blouse”), a 1990s Bollywood cult song The various sessions in dramatic art and ence of Draft – International Network for that translated itself cross-culturally. For writing fit together to create an education Research and Practice in Public Art. eight minutes everyone danced in the same in breadth and depth for young theatre Spearheaded by Gitanjali Dang, the language. professionals from Egypt. On the Swiss founder of Khanabadosh, an itinerant arts side, participants also benefited from the incubator based in Mumbai, and Christoph Merging art and activism exchange: not least through access to Schenker, a professor and the head of the For such a diverse assembly of artist-run new audiences thanks to the translation of Institute for Contemporary Art Research collectives, that priceless moment of effu- French and German works into Arabic, and (IFCAR) at the Zurich University of the Arts sive connection fortified the cohesive spirit through the opportunity to engage with (ZHdK), Draft was envisaged as a year-long that marked the proceedings of Day Three, Egyptian artists. undertaking bringing together art collec- which had the same structure of clusters tives anchored in nine cities around the of city-based presentations as the first two Menha el Batraoui (b. 1946) is theatre critic of world: Cairo, Cape Town, Hamburg, Hong days. “How radical can contemporary art the Egyptian French-language weekly Al Ahram Hebdo, and writes on architecture and interior Kong, Mexico City, Mumbai, Shanghai, be?” was the overarching question posed by design for the magazine El Beit (The Home). St. Petersburg and Zurich. Ultimately each Dang in her inaugural address on Day One. She also works as a translator and interpreter. of the collectives would undertake projects It was addressed by each of the participants Translated from the French by Geoffrey in their individual cities: through workshop across the three days, inciting further in- Spearing scenarios, and with a constellation of col- vestigations into the relevance of an art laborators, including curators and interdis- practice embedded in the structure of the ciplinary practitioners. The opening con- collective, and of artists partnering to cre- ference in Mumbai aimed to collectively ate works poised as mindful interventions explore how contemporary art can initiate within the socio-political environments and contribute to discursive practices about and personal histories of the nine “creative the public sphere and the imaginative con- cities” selected as sites for discussion. struct of the city. “Draft is interested in making in- When we reached our destination, the roads,” said Dang. “One such inroad was a terrace adjoining the studio belonging to deeper and more diverse understanding of the multimedia artist collective CAMP, the the place of art in socio-political discourses sky was relatively overcast. As the evening across vastly dissimilar, and yet somehow grew more intoxicating, the laptop serving similar, contexts.” In this way the confer-

as the console became the site upon which ence was a meeting ground for the artist

LOCAL TIME 34 Draft’s opening conference: artist collectives from nine cities around the world met in Mumbai to launch a year-long exchange project.

collectives in the nine cities. Architects and Hong Kong-based sound artist Samson its primary motive: moving from creative urbanists Prasad Shetty and Rupali Gupte, Young in his presentation on orchestra interaction to the site-sensitive creation for example, believe that “the urban realm making as a community-based practice and of collaborative artworks to be realized is incoherent, unbound, unstable and gets his involvement with its documentation. by mid-2016, when the participants are worked out through multiple and messy “What does it mean to reproduce the insti- scheduled to reconvene in Zurich. How logics.” From mapping cities to compre- tutions of classical music outside of the this was going to be achieved was the hending their problems to conceiving of West today? What does it mean for an Asian source of much debate – but that was pre- corrective interventions, their practice in- composer to write an ‘opera,’ a ‘symphony,’ sumably the idea behind the conference’s cludes drawings, mixed-media works, writ- or a ‘bagatelle’? How does one gain admis- aptly-chosen title. “Draft” emphasizes the ing, teaching, walks and conversations. On sion into this very specific history of mu- tentativeness of artistic ideas and their the other hand Chto Delat, the St. Peters- sic-making, and at what price?” Young asks. myriad open-ended possibilities, as they burg-based collective of artists, critics, phi- The overemphasis on the urban was under- help create a cross-pollinated work of art losophers, and writers founded in 2003, cut by Indian journalist P. Sainath’s key- which is the result of a profound collabora- sees itself as “a self-organized platform for note address on the tragic decline of the tion over a concentrated expanse of time. a variety of cultural activities intent on po- rural in India and the traditional livelihoods liticizing ‘knowledge production’ through it helped sustain that were integral to the www.connectingspaces.ch

redefinitions of an engaged autonomy for ecosystem. This is something he hopes to Rosalyn D’Mello is a New Delhi-based independ- cultural practice today.” Through many counteract through his initiative, The Peo- ent writer and former editor-in-chief of BLOUIN ARTINFO India. Her forthcoming projects, campaigns, and their well-circu- ple’s Archive of Rural India, which he calls work of non-fiction, A Handbook For My Lover, lated Russian-English newspaper What is “a living journal, a breathing archive” of is being published in India by Harper Collins. to be Done, they have been doing precisely “the everyday lives of everyday people.” that: merging political theory, art, and Though not “about” the city, Draft, ac- activism. cording to Dang and Schenker, was meant to “mobilize this complicated ecosystem Mobilizing creative energies as a springboard for thinking through an An investigation into the continuing con- infinite spectrum of artistic and philo- sequences of colonialism in artistic practice sophical concerns including history, ur- was another preoccupation among partic- banism, and political agency.” As the con-

Photos: Draft ipating artists, enunciated poetically by ference reached its close, the focus fell on

LOCAL TIME 35 Performers and crew members try out different moves during rehearsals at the Palace of Culture in Durrës.

36 REPORTAGE Medea Mash-Up In Thinking about Medea, an Albanian-Swiss theatre production takes up a classical tragedy in order to explore the role of trust, domination and submission in contemporary relationships. Passages reports on the rehearsals in Durrës, Albania.

By Isabel Drews (text) and Tristan Sherifi (photos)

She might be familiar to some: Medea, the decades from the outside world, the old betrayed wife who killed her own children. gender roles had loosened somewhat, but But why Medea, of all people? Why has a the dependency of women on their hus- Swiss-Albanian theatre production taken bands and family still remained strong. this antiquated angel of revenge out of the Only recently did Albanian newspapers take treasure-chest of Greek tragedy, in order up the topos of Medea once again after an to explore the balance of power in rela- Albanian mother, abandoned by her hus- tionships and male/female role models? band and breadwinner, murdered her chil- Thinking about Medea – Duke menduar dren. The situation is still rooted in the col- Medean – is the title of the most recent lective consciousness of the South Balkans. project by the Basel performance artist “You can’t bring that over into Swit- Beatrice Fleischlin. She has developed it zerland,” says Beatrice Fleischlin, who together with the choreographer Gjergj grew up in a large farming family near Lu- Prevazi, one of the leading figures of con- cerne and makes her home in both Basel temporary dance in his native Albania. and Berlin. “The idea that women would feel so much at the mercy of their husbands Contemporary context that they could liberate themselves only “The Medea theme was my idea,” explains through such extreme behaviour does not Gjergj Prevazi during a rehearsal in Durrës, correspond in any way to our idea of life,” a city on the Adriatic coast. We are sitting she explains. “I also do not want to repro- in a pronouncedly western-style café in the duce that on the stage.” For that reason she city centre. With concern he had observed has rejected playing Medea by the book. “At that domestic violence had been steadily the moment where I am supposed to kill on the rise in Albania. In the course of my children, I come onto the stage in a fat the opening-up of this country, cut off for suit instead. Medea’s act of destruction is

REPORTAGE 37 radical and irreversible. But we wanted to as clear,” she explains. Rehearsals become timated 750,000 bunkers around the coun- present the ‘possibility of transformation’ mutually inspiring and offer a chance to try try during his forty-year reign. and make it visible by having the Medea out different ideas. performer leave the stage frantic with rage, Theatre as a propaganda instrument her companions at a total loss, only to Paranoia in poured concrete Gjergj Prevazi grew up in Durrës, where to- reappear a short time later in a grotesque Labinot Rexhepi very much admires this day many Albanians, Macedonians and inflatable fat suit as a princess, and thus open way of working, where little is prede- Kosovars who live in Switzerland spend open up an entirely new theatrical space.” termined and there is a lot of room for cre- their beach holidays. The post-communist On stage the mood hovers be- economic boom has left its traces tween the traditional and the mod- here. The skyline of Durrës is marked ern, shifting back and forth through by numerous ostentatious buildings a rapid sequence of events. Instead of in a wild mix of styles. In their shad- a strictly linear narrative, the play in- ows decay the old residential tower vokes fragments, isolated passages, blocks from the long decades of the statements and counter-statements communist era. When the regime fell from two sources: the classical Greek in 1991, Prevazi had just finished text by Euripides from 431 BC and a his studies as a choreographer and, contemporary novel by the East Ger- as he says, first had to come to terms man writer Christa Wolf. The text is with the new circumstances. Today spoken in three languages: English, he teaches choreography at the Albanian and German. University of the Arts in Tirana. With a most modest budget he stages the Myth as mirror annual Albania Dance Meeting, Albania’s traditional role models, influ- ativity. The twenty-nine-year-old dancer, where Thinking about Medea – Duke men- enced by ideas of patriarchy, blood revenge who would actually have liked to become a duar Medean – will have its Tirana première. and machismo, collide with the Swiss view soccer player like Shakiri, Xhaka and Co., By pulling the necessary strings, the chore- of things, where many norms have lost as he explains with a wink, gave up his po- ographer has managed to obtain the Pallati their binding character. Thinking about sition with the state ballet in Pristina be- i Kulturës, the palace of culture in the heart Medea takes place within this field of ten- cause of the lack of self-determination and of Durrës, for the company’s rehearsal sion. The Medea myth serves as a mirror the excess of state control. “Like in Mos- space. Built in 1963, the state theatre offers that enables us to rethink our own ideas cow”, he says, tersely. In addition to Rex- of morality, freedom and liberation. The hepi, Prevazi and Fleischlin, two musicians theatre company uses refreshing irony to from Lucerne also play a prominant role in temper the heaviness of the theme. Deci- this intercultural production: Stefan Haas sive here is the role of the Kosovar dancer and Jesco Tscholitsch from the folk-music Labinot Rexhepi. Playing subtly between duo Heligonka. Both Labinot Rexhepi and gentleness and dominance, he calls into Gjergj Prevazi emphasize that this cultural question the macho stereotype of the Bal- exchange has been highly important for kan man. their own artistic development. For neither But not only differing role models in Albania nor in Kosovo is there a free and characterize the performance. Its inter open scene for the arts. Contemporary cultural working method requires a great dance here is primarily folk dancing, the deal of energy and openness from everyone choreographer reports, with some bitter- and a readiness to step into new territory. ness. Albania’s cultural institutions are set Gjergj Prevazi speaks of a process of search- in their ways and hardly open to outside in- ing, and Beatrice Fleischlin notes: “We are fluences, he says, critically. The isolation of each on a long path toward the other.” She the communist years can be felt even to and Gjergj Prevazi share the play’s artistic this day. Albania was long seen by the West direction. “We want to discover the cultural as the North Korea of Europe – ruled by the aesthetic of the other – in short, how he or communist head of state Enver Hoxha, she ticks.” While Gjergj Prevazi primarily whose paranoia caused him to build an es- works from the “safe” space behind the scenes, Beatrice Fleischlin also appears on stage – out of conviction. “I believe that a project becomes more ambiguous, more “We want to discover the cultural aesthetic of the other – hybrid and thus more exciting when the in short, how he or she ticks.” Beatrice Fleischlin distribution of roles and hierarchies is not

REPORTAGE 38 the art world as well. Prevazi works fer- vently with the power of symbols. In a society where, for instance, homosexuality is still a taboo, symbols have great impor- tance. He often mentions the metaphorical space and the ambiguities to which Bea- trice Fleischlin first had to accustom herself. But she has experience in this sort of thing. Two years ago, together with the German director Antje Schupp, she set off with pepper spray in her pocket to get to know the newest state in Europe. Out of that trip grew the play Love.State.Kosovo, a witty and very personal approach to a country unknown to many West Europeans in spite of its proximity. Labinot Rexhepi was also involved as a dancer in this project. Thanks to word-of-mouth publicity in cafés frequented by Kosovars and on web platforms in Switzerland, their Kosovar-Swiss cultural exchange was a popular success. “The house was full. Half of the spectators were immigrants from the South Balkan countries,” says producer Larissa Bizer. Hopefully, this new Swiss tour, from Basel through Aarau to Lucerne, will meet with similar success.

Upcoming performances: 13-17 January 2016 at Kaserne Basel; 6-9 April 2016, Theater Tuchlaube Aarau

For information on further performances in Switzerland and Albania: produktionswerkstatt.ch/projekte/ thinking-about-medea/

Isabel Drews is Media Relations Officer at Pro Helvetia. She was previously active in political journalism, and was parliamentary correspon dent for a leading Swiss newspaper.

Tristan Sherifi, born in Durrës, Albania in 1968, is a trained cameraman and film director. He has been a freelance photographer and cameraman since 2006, and the technical director of the Albania Dance Meeting since 2006.

Translated from the German by Bruce Lawder Dancer Labinot Rexhepi’s role ironically subverts macho stereotypes. faded velvet chairs, sparks flying from the religious life with an iron fist; the theatre, stage lights, and a drowsy watchman seated on the other hand, was his propaganda in- at the entrance. The institution barely man- strument, Sherifi says. The consequences ages to survive with its modest twenty per- can still be felt today. Gjergj Prevazi points formances a year. That was not always the out that it is an important signal to the au- case. Next door stands a large mosque re- thorities that the Swiss-Albanian theatre built by a real estate tycoon. Under Hoxha project is rehearsing in this historically it had been half-destroyed and converted charged palace of culture. into a youth theatre, explains long-time Durrës resident Tristan Sherifi, who works Word-of-mouth publicity for the company as both chauffeur and pho- The dominant climate of anxiety from the tographer. The autocratic Hoxha opposed long years of isolation has left its traces in

REPORTAGE 39 PRO HELVETIA NEWSFLASH

Getting Out There: A Cultural Focus Outside City Centres

One of the advantages of cities over creative debate with local traditions. more rural areas, it is often said, Another focus is on trans-regional is their broad cultural palette. Opera networking projects and residence houses, theatres, cinemas, concert programmes, to help strengthen and Celebrating thirty years in Paris halls and much more are gathered in spread cultural activities in rural urban centres. But it would be wrong regions. 12 projects were selected by to assume that cities have a mono- Pro Helvetia in collaboration with poly on culture. Whether in valleys, cantons and cities; they will be carried Thirtieth villages, towns or in the suburbs: out between 2015 and 2019. The ini high-quality and innovative cultural tiative has already been launched events can be found everywhere. with artist residencies at the Verzasca Anniversary Pro Helvetia’s Cultural Diversity in Foto Festival, events highlighting Non-Urban Regions initiative was Engadine building culture, strategies Publication developed to draw attention to excep- for the continued development of tional projects, help with networking, the Delémont Comic Festival, and a or improve financial circumstances. networking project for the performing On 11 December 2015 Pro Helvetia will It supports measures in regions outside arts in the Bernese Jura. release a commemorative publication urban centres that promote underlying www.prohelvetia.ch/Kulturelle- on the role and the public perception of conditions for regional cultural pro Vielfalt.3879.0.html the Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris, duction, increase visibility, or seek out a marking the end of the CCS’s jubilee year. Starting with the preparatory steps of the late 1970s, it offers an overview of thirty years of work in Pro Helvetia’s oldest cultural centre outside of Switzer- land. The introduction was written by Charles Beer, the Arts Council’s current president. The book honouring Switzer- land’s showcase for culture in Paris also features a richly illustrated timeline, and a joint interview with four of the CCS’s directors: Werner Düggelin (1988 –1991), Daniel Jeannet (1991– 2002), and the two current directors, Paul Felley and Olivier Kaeser (2008 – present). In addition to archival materials, the volume also features a series of articles written by thirty renowned authors on thirty Swiss artists who left their mark on the CCS between 1985 and 2015. The publication was designed by Ludovic Balland and issued in collaboration with the Noir sur Blanc publishing house. www.ccsparis.com

A resident of Sonogno visits an exhibition space at the Verzasca Foto Festival. Large photo: Christian Lutz; small Ludovic Balland, CCS Paris

PRO HELVETIA NEWSFLASH 40 Christian Kerez Selected for Swiss Pavilion in Venice

The Zurich-based architect Christian Kerez will be featured at the Swiss Pavilion of the Fifteenth International Architecture Biennale in Venice next year. The members of Pro Helvetia’s Architecture Jury chose Kerez based on his engaging project submission. Kerez is Professor of Architecture and Design at ETH Zurich, where he also obtained his degree. He has made a name for himself with projects like an innovative schoolhouse in the Zurich suburb of Leutschenbach, a high-rise office building in Zhengzhou, China, and a social housing project in Brazil. Pro Helvetia’s Salon Suisse will once again be held in the Palazzo Trevisan as the official accompanying programme. Salonnière will be Professor Leïla el-Wakil of the University of Geneva, who studies the history of living spaces in Switzerland, Europe and the Middle East. The Architecture Biennale will take place from 28 May to 27 November 2016. The Leutschenbach schoolhouse with its top-floor gymnasium is one of the best-known www.biennials.ch works by Christian Kerez in Switzerland.

make new contacts. Following on Swiss Focus in France’s heels, in 2016 it’s Switzer- land’s turn. The Swiss Night promises a packed programme to open the event: Bremen eight specially selected Swiss bands will offer proof of the country’s musical The Who’s Who of the variety. In addition to this special ap- jazz scene will meet in pearance at the convention, the Swiss Bremen for the eleventh cultural scene will be given a unique time from 21 to 24 April platform that goes beyond jazz in 2016. jazzahead!, the the form of a 17-day cultural festival. convention with an The programme will encompass all integrated showcase fes- cultural spheres and is being organized tival, is considered the in close collaboration with many of most important inter- Bremen’s cultural institutions. The national meeting place Swiss Cultural Festival will take place for the jazz scene. from 7 to 24 April 2016. Agencies, labels, artists, www.jazzahead.de media representatives, A double presence for Switzerland at the 2016 jazzahead! in producers and event Bremen: with a Swiss stand at the music fair, and as guest managers get together, of honour at the festival. Photos: Dario Pfammatter; Frank Pusch exchange ideas and

PRO HELVETIA NEWSFLASH 41 By Elsbeth Gugger – A high enclosure with PARTNER highest quality and greatest promise come an electronic security gateway dictates the through, Susan Gloudemans notes. It boundary between art and everyday life. seems the jury is usually right, judging Within, far from the bustle along the city’s from the reactions culled in November, centrally located Sarphatisstraat, some 50 Star Academy when museum directors, curators and gal- artists are busily taking advantage of the lery owners from all over the world are in- sanctuary that a converted cavalry barracks vited to the art exhibition. offers them. Those unauthorized to pene- There are hundreds of artist-in- The annual cost of a residency is trate this imposing classical edifice would residence programmes around 65,000 euros, funded in the main by the hardly imagine that the artistic elite of to- academy. The artists’ sole financial respon- morrow is at work here. the world for artists seeking sibility is raising, in their home country, And yet: this year’s Art Basel featured a temporary change of scenery. the 15,000 euros necessary to cover their 35 works by former or present-day resi- But Amsterdam’s Rijksakade- living costs. In some countries, support is dents of the Rijksakademie, the Venice mie van beeldende kunsten provided through partnerships with fund- Biennale 11, and Art Brussels 33. Moreover, ing institutions: for up-and-coming Swiss 37 of their works are on display at the Cen- (Royal Academy of Fine Arts) is artists, Pro Helvetia plays this role. In cases tre Pompidou in Paris, 26 at New York’s the only one to offer residencies where an artist, perhaps from a developing Museum of Modern Art, and 7 at the Migros of up to two years, and to country, cannot contribute any funds at all, Museum of Contemporary Art in Zurich. the Rijksakademie will help with contacts An enviable record indeed. Yet, as count so many successes to other funding sources. Susan Gloudemans points out, the partici- among its former participants. Susan Gloudemans points out that, pants are not being “tailored” for the art after a two-year residency, participants are market. As director of the Rijksakademie’s better equipped for the art world, having Trust Fund, Gloudemans is responsible for strengthened their position, enlarged their the financing of the two-year residency pro- networks and broadened their artistic field gram. Graduates, on average thirty years of activity. The Swiss artist Marianne old, are expected to use the time granted Flotron, who spent two years in Amsterdam them to their best advantage, striving to de- (2007 – 2008), agrees. For her, two years velop and deepen their skills, to experiment freed of all financial worries were very im- with new materials, and to exchange ideas portant. “The chance to concentrate was with their fellow residents and a team of art pivotal to endowing my work with a theo- consultants. To this end, and in addition to retical foundation.” its own art studio, the academy offers its residents ten more workshops: here, under www.rijksakademie.nl/ENG/residency the guidance of various specialists, they can Pro Helvetia also co-operates with the following experiment with unfamiliar techniques, in partners in supporting residencies for up-and- coming young artists: Gasworks, London; AIR fields ranging from painting, ceramics, pre- Berlin Alexanderplatz – ABA, Berlin; A-I-R cision engineering, wood- and metalwork- Laboratory Center for Contemporary Art ing, on to the latest graphic, photographic Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; WIELS, Brussels. and audio methods. Elsbeth Gugger (b. 1958 in Bern) has been Thanks to this generosity, the German living in Amsterdam since 1992. She is Swiss public radio SRF’s correspondent for the artist Johann Arens is now able to experi- Netherlands and Belgium, and also reports on ment with Plexiglas thermal moulding. politics, culture and society for the NZZ Sunday Given the high cost of his research mate- to materials and methods intensifies the newspaper. rials, says Arens, he “could never have in- creative process. Translated from the German by Margie Mounier dulged in such thorough testing.” Arens is Partner profiles public and private cultural ensconced in his high-ceilinged workroom A demanding selection process institutions within Switzerland and around the in the former stables, where he creates The Rijksakademie offers 25 residencies, for world. enormous installations. On the floor above, which it receives over 1000 applications the Argentinian artist-in-residence Aimée each year from around the globe. The strin- Zito Lemma is working on a wall-size col- gent three-round selection process narrows lage of photos and newspaper clippings. them down to 37. These candidates must When she needs a colour enlargement, she present their motivations orally before a heads for the on-site lab to have it printed commission of internationally recognized out. Lemma is convinced that easier access artists. Only those laying claim to work of Illustration: Raffinerie

PARTNER: RIJKSAKADEMIE 42 CARTE BLANCHE Crisis and Crossroads by Eric Vautrin – For the last few years, the continent of Europe seems to have been de- scending into ever deeper turmoil. We have dubbed this phenomenon “crisis,” which essentially means a period of change. In fact, the widening gap between the incomes of the richest and poorest, and the dawning realization that we are all responsible for exhausting the planet’s resources, have been calling our way of life into question for some time. But the economic crisis and the fate that politicians have reserved for the weakest among us, all the while bail- ing out banks and “reassuring investors,” have revealed the extent to which politics – which is to say the collective elaboration of the principles of community – has been losing ground to economics, or rather, a very specific form of economics which guaran- us to reflect on complexities and unex- ini, telling the tale of four Greek pension- tees that the richest among us remain so. pected combinations. The French artist ers who decide to commit suicide because Meanwhile, the fate of tens of thou- François Tanguy speaks of “making the dis- nobody needs them any more; and Swiss- sands of migrants sends shudders down our similar similar.” French visual artist Augustin Rebetez, who spines. Not so long ago, when the migrants This spring at Bukavu in Congo and seizes upon whatever he encounters on his were Europeans looking for a better life, then in Berlin, the Zurich-based theatre everyday rounds to create alternative mech- they were known as émigrés – something artist Milo Rau put the horrors of the Congo anisms and reveal alternative logics. Each we all too easily forget in our obsession War on trial. At the FAR art festival in of them presents their own way of bringing with the here and now. They are fleeing Nyon, the Swiss-French artist Andrea the stage to life, while questioning the wars for which Europe cannot entirely es- Marioni offered up a War of the Worlds frameworks that constrain us and remind- cape blame, or desperate living conditions. in which the search for extraterrestrial ing us that we have a choice: that the future The Mediterranean Sea, the cradle of our life turns into a frantic confrontation with is neither fixed nor predetermined. culture, has become a sordid open-air the unknown that can be resolved only These works are not solutions but grave. Here and there, camps are set up, through generalized mistrust; or, con- rather proposals that, as the composer Hel- walls are built, boats are pushed back into versely, through poetry. Also this spring, mut Lachenmann puts it, favour certain international waters, where those aboard Michel Schröder’s Human Resources for doubt over doubtful certainty. They help to die in silence. Theater Hora, a Zurich-based professional make this plot of land in the centre of Eu- What can art do in the face of this “cri- company of actors with intellectual disabil- rope less a backward-looking island fortress sis”? The question is not new. A work of art ities, succeeded in creating a space where than a crossroads, a meeting point that is a more or less overt disruption of public his players and Hora’s became indistin- draws its richness and power from the en- order, inasmuch as it represents the intru- guishable, yet unique in their joyous ec- counters and exchanges that it stimulates, sion of an unfamiliar and dissonant voice centricity. This season in Vidy we welcome and that is open to the world yet to come. into the continuum of our lives. But at the Simon McBurney from England, who inter- same time, art offers a framework that can weaves a journey through the Amazon with Eric Vautrin, dramaturge at the Théâtre Vidy in Lausanne, is a lecturer and researcher working embrace and formalize the most problem- our universal experience of exploring our at France’s National Centre for Scientific atic manifestations of dissent. It is peaceful own consciousness until the two are as one. Research, and joint head of the “Nouvelles Théâtralités” research programme (nothx.org). and receptive to collective listening; it We are also featuring Romeo Castellucci opens itself up to discussion; it is a third from Italy, who invites us to consider the Translated from the French by Geoffrey party that, crucially, enables us to view our scope for compassion in the modern day, Spearing fears and frenzies objectively. The art of even for the utmost degradation and vio- Photo: Loan Nguyen, www.madameloan.com today illuminates our times when it causes lence; Daria Deflorian and Antonio Tagliar-

CARTE BLANCHE 43 GALLERY Daniel Karrer

Daniel Karrer was born in 1983 in Binningen (BL), and lives and works in Basel. In 2010 he received a Master of Fine Arts from the Basel School of Design (HGK Basel). In 2011 he was awarded an artist stipend from the city of Basel. In 2015 he was selected by Pro Helvetia for the Collection Cahiers d’Artistes. For 2016 he received a studio fellowship in Berlin from the Christoph Merian Foundation. His works have been shown in numerous exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad. www.herrmanngermann.com

Upcoming Dates: Insight #1, 2013 Solo exhibit: Herrmann Germann Contemporary in Zurich, Autumn 2016. oil on cotton, 120 × 120 cm Group shows: CCHA, Cultuurcentrum Hasselt, Belgium, with Virginie Bailley, January 2016. Kunstmuseum Olten, February 2016. Untitled, 2013

oil, gouache, wood, 32 × 26 cm Photos: Courtesy Herrmann Germann Contemporary and the artist; Credit Suisse Collection

Passages will be taking a break in 2016

Passages, the magazine of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, reports on Swiss art and culture and on cultural exchanges between Switzerland and the rest of the world. Passages appears two times a year in 60 countries – in German, French and English. IMPRESSUM ONLINE PASSAGES

Publisher Passages Recent Issues: Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council The Cultural Magazine of Pro Helvetia online: www.prohelvetia.ch www.prohelvetia.ch/passages/en Beyond the Limits Editorial Staff Pro Helvetia News passages No. 64 Managing Editor and Current projects, programmes and competitions: Editor, German edition: www.prohelvetia.ch Alexandra von Arx Assistance: Pro Helvetia Offices

Beyond the Limits Isabel Drews, Lirim Etemi, Eva Stensrud Cairo/Egypt Open Borders, Blurred Boundaries At the Kochi Biennale: Swiss Artists in India Coming of Age in South Africa: Mats Staub’s Memory Project Opération Iceberg: Coaching for Young Musicians www.prohelvetia.org.eg THE CULTURAL MAGAZINE OF PRO HELVETIA, NO. 64, ISSUE 1/2015 Editor, French edition: Marielle Larré Johannesburg/South Africa www.prohelvetia.org.za Editor, English edition: Staging Spaces Marcy Goldberg New Delhi/India passages No. 63 www.prohelvetia.in Editorial Address Pro Helvetia New York/USA Swiss Arts Council www.swissinstitute.net

Passages Staging Spaces The Scenographic Imagination In Rome: A Dialogue Between Artists and Scholars In New York: Early Works By David Weiss Hirschengraben 22 In Saint Petersburg: A Swiss / Russian Theatre Project Paris/France THE CULTURAL MAGAZINE OF PRO HELVETIA, NO. 63, ISSUE 2/2014 CH-8024 Zurich www.ccsparis.com T +41 44 267 71 71 F +41 44 267 71 06 Rome, Milan, Venice/Italy [email protected] www.istitutosvizzero.it Cloud Culture passages No. 62 Graphic Design San Francisco/USA Raffinerie AG für Gestaltung, Zurich www.swissnexsanfrancisco.org

Printing Shanghai/China Druckerei Odermatt AG, Dallenwil www.prohelvetia.cn Cloud Culture Digital Media and the Arts A Champion Loser: Performance Artist Anthea Moys An Explorer With a Camera: Adrien Missika A Promising Partnership: Swiss Design in China Print Run THE CULTURAL MAGAZINE OF PRO HELVETIA, NO. 62, ISSUE 1/2014 20,000 Newsletter © Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council. All rights Would you like to stay informed about Swiss Design? Design! reserved. Reproduction only by permission of arts and culture, and keep up to date on passages the editors. Pro Helvetia’s activities? No. 61 Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter: Bylined articles do not necessarily reflect the www.prohelvetia.ch opinions of the publisher. Photographs © the photographers; reproduction by permission only. Design? Design! The Forms of Our Lives Lyrical in Leukerbad: Translating the Music of Language On the Move in Cairo: Choreographic Research Along the Nile Illuminated in Delhi: Jonathan O’Hear’s Lamps and Shadows Pro Helvetia supports and promotes Swiss tHe CUltUral MaGaZine oF Pro HelVetia, no. 61, iSSUe 2/2013 culture in Switzerland and throughout the world. It supports diversity in creative culture, stimulates reflection on cultural needs, and contributes to an open and culturally pluralist Switzerland.

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IMPRESSUM 47 If you’re too interested in a medium, the work will be too much about the medium itself. The medium has to be at the service of the ideas. This is especially

The Meeting of the Accidental and the Planned true with digital media. Christian Marclay, p. 14 I think singing is a fundamental human The Joy of Yodeling need, and that’s what connects us. Nadja Räss, p. 26 That’s the key task of art: to make unconscious knowledge and unconscious doing conscious, and there- To the Artists of the Future fore morally and politically questionable. Milo Rau, p. 29 www.prohelvetia.ch/passages/en

Pro Helvetia supports and promotes Swiss culture in Switzerland and throughout the world.