2021 SUMMIT PARTNERS
The 2021 Verbier Art Summit collaborated with the following cultural and institutional partners who helped provide inspiring content related to the "Resource Hungry" theme on the Summit’s first ever virtual platform.
UNHCR
The 2021 Summit collaborated with Switzerland for UNCHR (the UN Refugee Agency) by showcasing a short documentary by UNHCR and Land Life Company entitled It Will Be Green Again (2018) in the Inspiration section of the virtual platform.
UNHCR & Land Life Company, It Will Be Green Again, 2018. Photo credit: Xavier Bourgois, UNHCR.
Set through the eyes of a refugee family living on a Green Refugee Camp in Minawao Camp Cameroon, It Will Be Green Again shows how sustainable solutions are being implemented in refugee camps. More specifically, it shows how to build hope for the future by planting trees in the Camp. Since 2017, 40.000 trees were planted, aiming to regreen the surroundings, to reverse land degradation, to provide green spaces for the refugee communities and to foster a closer relationship between the refugee and host communities.
Switzerland for UNHCR is UNHCR’s partner for Switzerland and Liechtenstein. UNHCR is a global organisation dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights and building a better future for refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people. As a foundation under Swiss law, Switzerland for UNHCR was established in 2020 to reach out to civil society and raise critical resources to enable UNHCR to continue to fulfil its mission.
Click here to watch the UNHCR documentary It Will Be Green Again.
Click here to learn more about UNHCR.
CENTRE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN GENÈVE
Founded in 1974 as Geneva’s “Kunsthalle”, the Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève is the first contemporary-art institution in French-speaking Switzerland. The 2021 Summit collaborated with the Centre by showcasing the podcast series about culture and philosophy entitled Overmorrow’s Library (2020) in the Inspiration section of the virtual platform.
Frederico Campagna speaking at the 2019 Verbier Art Summit. Image by Alpimages/Fleur Gerritsen.
The Overmorrow’s Library podcast series is conceved by 2019 Summit speaker Federico Campagna and presented at the 5th Floor of the Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève. Frederico Campagna is an Italian philosopher known for his interdisciplinary work on metaphysics, theology and cultural studies. In this series, Frederico acts as a librarian to Overmorrow’s Library, operating a selection of books and authors on the cultural production of worlds, apocalypses, apocatastases and post-future culture. By examining the concepts of world-building, cosmogony and cosmology, Frederico hopes to unravel the limits of how worlds come into existence, and "how we as a civilization will be able to speak about ourselves today, to the people who will inhabit the world the day after tomorrow”. True to Frederico’s interdisciplinary research methods, the shelves of Overmorrow’s Library span across topics of mysticism, politics, mythology, philosophy, video-game design and more.
Click here to listen to Overmorrow's Library.
Click here to learn more about Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève.
VERBIER FESTIVAL
The Verbier Festival is an annual international classical music festival that takes place in Verbier, Switzerland, aiming to create a community of exchange between great masters and young musicians at the heart of the Swiss Alps. The 2021 Summit collaborated with Verbier Festival by showcasing Beethoven Symphony No. 2 (2020) by the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra / Takács-Nagy in the Inspiration section of the virtual platform.
Video still of Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra / Takács-Nagy, Beethoven Symphony No. 2, 2020.
Beethoven Symphony No. 2 (2020) is shown through a stream presented by Bank Julius Baer, which originally aired in 2020 on medici.tv as part of the Virtual Verbier Festival programme 'A day with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra’ (VFCO). Veritable worldwide ambassador for the Verbier Festival, the VFCO adds to its reputation after each performance. Comprising former members of the Verbier Festival Orchestra, the orchestra performs in the most prestigious concert halls in the world, joined by both established and emerging superstars. Led by the intrepid Gábor Takács-Nagy since its founding, the VFCO tirelessly seeks to bring its mellifluous music to wider audiences. The orchestra came together in an unorthodox way in 2020 to perform Beethoven Symphony No. 2 during pandemic confinement. Gabór Takács-Nagy conducts from his garden near Geneva. The Virtual Verbier Festival was generously supported by Madame Aline Foriel-Destezet.
Click here to watch Beethoven Symphony No. 2 (2020).
Click here to learn more about Verbier Festival At Home.
VERBIER 3-D FOUNDATION
The Verbier 3-D Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the creation of contemporary art to promote environmentalism, education, and culture to local and international audiences. The 2021 Summit collaborated with the Verbier 3-D Foundation by showcasing their online residency work of Native American artist Natalie Ball entitled Personal Home Videos Searching Through Ancestry (2020) in the Inspiration section of the virtual platform.
Video still of Natalie Ball, Personal Home Videos Searching Through Ancestry, 2020.
In 2021, the 3-D Foundation will experiment with a new format for their Residency Programme that will act as a response to creating art, sharing knowledge and building community during the time of social distancing: an Online Residency with Native American artist Natalie Ball. From using Instagram as a sketchbook to online open discussions and virtual happenings, the Online Residency will exist in various digital formats throughout the year, with the aim to create an easily accessible environment that allows Natalie to experiment with new forms of creating and engaging with the public. She will share her studio practice, home life and research behind the making of new work in response to current environmental and political concerns around the subject of water, which thread through both the United States and Switzerland.
Natalie works in a tradition of West Coast/California Assemblage, reminiscent of the 1970s Los Angeles Funk based free Assemblage. Through her chosen objects, attributed to indigenous identity, Natalie reassesses indigeneity as a space outside of bounded thinking: "I developed my studio practice using visual archives, history, gesture, materiality, and personal experience as the foundation to create painted textiles and sculptures as Power Objects. Through auto-ethnography, I attempt to move ‘Indian’ outside of governing discourses to offer a visual genealogy that refuses to line up with the many constructed existences of Native Americans."
Click here to learn more about Natalie Ball’s Online Residency.
Read more about the Verbier 3-D Foundation here.
JULIE'S BICYCLE
The 2021 Summit collaborated with the London based creative sustainability charity Julie’s Bicycle through its Founder Alison Tickell participating in the London Debate, and by showcasing their briefing report entitled Environmental Sustainability in the Digital Age of Culture (2020), about the digital transformation of our cultural landscape in the Inspiration section of the virtual platform.
Umbrelliums Assemblance at DigitalRevolution, Barbican Centre. Photo credit: Duncan McKenzie.
Julie’s Bicycle continues its mission of supporting the creative community to act on climate change by providing this free resource Environmental Sustainability in the Digital Age of Culture (2020) to aid arts and cultural organisations in navigating their environmental impact. Although 'the digital’ has opened-up many creative possibilities and opportunities for the arts & cultural community, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, the environmental and social consequences must also be considered. The briefing paper explores topics of "environmental considerations and digital technology’s carbon footprint; data and projections for energy use in the digital industry; good practice case studies from artists and organisations and recommendations for planning and measuring impact".
To download the briefing report and executive summary, please click here.
Make sure to watch their new series Creative Climate Chats, conversations with leading thinkers in culture and climate covering just transition, new economics for a regenerative economy, the net zero carbon challenge, and climate justice here.
To read more about Julie’s Bicycle click here.
EDHEA
EDHEA, the Valais School of Art, offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Arts in Public Spheres (MAPS), as well as professional training for graphic design recognised within the Swiss Design Schools, placing special attention to sound arts, and also to performance, art in urban and natural space, or even socially engaged practices rooted in the community. For the 2021 Summit, EDHEA gifted the Summit a ‘paper version of an exhibition’ which was produced by the students from the Master of Art in Public Spheres (MAPS) programme.
Anne-Loyse Jaques. Installation. Photo by Nicolas Vermot-Petit-Outhenin.
The Summit was also offered three different versions of a 45rpm record with a limited edition of 3 x 30 recordings from the Sound Arts Department by the following students:
Claire Frachebourg
Mouvements 2, 2020, 3’01’’
amplified chalks
45 rpm recorded at ALPOLE
limited edition of 85
Léa Locher and Noémie Tagan
Ritour nella douza, 2020, 2’37’’
audio score and improvised vocal wanderings
45 rpm recorded at ALPOLE
limited edition of 85
Dianita
Expérimentation n°4, 2020, 3’03’’
drumsticks on concrete floor
45 rpm recorded in the Usego halls, SIERRE
limited edition of 85
Click here to learn more about EDHEA.
EDHEA also provides creative workshops for young people between 14 and 16 years starting on 27 February, learn more by clicking here.
EPFL+ECAL LAB
EPFL+ECAL Lab is the design research centre of the EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne) in cooperation with ECAL (University of Art and Design, Lausanne) that fosters innovation at the crossroads between technology, design and architecture.
Artist Residency Debate - Clockwise from the top: Ralph Dum, Nicolas Henchoz, Danielle Siembieda and Kasia Molga. Photo by 2021 Verbier Art Summit.
The Lab collaborated with the 2021 Summit by organising an Artist Residency debate, which was moderated by its Director Nicolas Henchoz, who invited the following thinkers and artists:
1. Ralph Dum, a senior expert from the European Commission who is in charge of developing research programmes focused on digital innovation fostering also on sustainability. He is the instigator of STARTS - Innovation at the nexus of Science Technology and the Arts;
2. Kasia Molga, a multidisciplinary artist questioning the impact of technology on the natural environment and its role in our relation and perception to ‘non-human makers’;
3. Danielle Siembieda, the creative director at Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST), a non-profit global think tank exploring critical themes at the intersection of art, sciences, and technology.
To watch the Artist residency debate with the live Q&A click here.
Click here to learn more about EPFL+ECAL Lab.
SMART
Launched in 2014 by the Foundation for the Sustainable Development of Mountain Regions (FDDM), the Sustainable Mountain Art (SMArt) programme aims to increase the perception of both decision-makers and the population as a whole, of the challenges facing mountain regions through artworks, and more particularly photographs. The 2021 Summit collaborated with SMArt by showcasing the collaborative project Herbarium x Symbiosis (2017) by artist Sharon Castellanos in the Inspiration section of the virtual platform.
Sharon Castellanos, Herbarium x Symbiosis, 2017.
Sharon is a Peruvian artist whose work aims to transfigure situations through documentary photography, challenging the notion of reality as evidence. Symbiosis is centred on the work and everyday life of herbalists and focuses on the ancestral tradition of picking of wild and medicinal plants by the inhabitants of the Canton of Valais, Switzerland. The documentary photography series produced during Sharon’s stay in Valais shows the direct benefit between the human being and the herbs, their habitats, atmospheres.
Click here to read more about the collaborative project Herbarium x Symbiosis (2017) by Sharon Castellanos.
Click here to learn more about the SMArt programme.
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