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The Verbier Art Summit is an interdisciplinary platform for innovation and change. 

From 29 to 30 January 2021, the Summit will celebrate its fifth edition, reconnect with former speakers and continue an important theme:

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RESOURCE HUNGRY

Our Cultured Landscape And Its Ecological Impact 

The virtual Verbier Art Summit—taking place concurrently with the annual in-person Summit in Verbier, Switzerland—will consist of a two-day free, digital programme, welcoming all those with a love for art, innovation and ecology to participate. 

As part of this expanded digital offering and in celebration of the Summit’s fifth anniversary, five new DEBATES from all over the world will deepen the Resource Hungry discussion started at the 2020 Summit earlier this year, presented bilingually in English and French.

New and existing TALKS by Summit speakers such as Olafur Eliasson, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Joan Jonas and Claudia Comte will focus on knowledge sharing around the social issues discussed at the previous Summits: (de)Growth (2017), the Digital Age (2018), Multiple Truths (2019) and Ecology (2020).

The 2021 Summit will give voice to artists, thinkers, activists, and especially young change-makers who are demanding a new way forward. The Summit will be both in-person and virtual, connecting artists and thinkers from all over the world.

Top: Olafur Eliasson at the 2018 Summit. Photo by Frederik Jacobovits.

Bottom: Rirkrit Tiravanija at the 2019 Summit. Photo by Alpimages.

Jessica Morgan, the Summit’s 2020 partnering museum director, reflects back on the theme Resource Hungry, stating: “It took a virus to halt aspects of our culture that were destroying the environment. Now is the moment to reflect on how we can evolve in response to the questions posed at the 2020 Verbier Art Summit:

• Can we learn from the light touch and holistic thinking of indigenous cultures that have cared for the land for generations?

• Can we reassess the spaces, habits, structures, and systems of culture to find new ways to operate and new ways to experience?

• Can we rethink our values?”

Jessica Morgan at the 2020 Summit. Photo by Alpimages.

The virtual Summit will also showcase ART AND ECOLOGICAL INSPIRATION by the Summit partners and international Members: art works, talks, performances, podcasts, books and workshops. The aim is to encourage all participants to take ACTION: “Repair our relationship to the land, by shifting away from endless resource extraction” and “begin to repair our relationships with one another in the process”, as the Canadian author Naomi Klein described so powerfully in her book On Fire. The Burning Case for a Green New Deal (2019).