Nasrin Amiri Ramsheh (*1992, Isfahan, Iran) based in Bern, Switzerland.

Nasrin Amiri is an Iranian visual artist based in Bern. She holds a BA in photography, and an MA in painting, both fulfilled in Iran, before moving to Switzerland for further training in contemporary arts. Her works explore a wide range of mediums and interdisciplinary projects from sound installation, and video art, to performance, but her main focus and passion lies in painting, which she has been engaged with professionally since 2016. Nasrin’s works are extremely expressive and mostly represent the connection between her mentality, emotions, and the world she lives in.

Artist Statement

During the process of creating these paintings, the artist was inspired by Eastern folklore supernatural beliefs and tales. She started to work on a ten-meter-long painting which led her to a process of creation by repetition. This repetition is depicted in the form of a loop; a circle of real and fantasy worlds. Through these repetitions, the border of the two universes starts to get blurred which creates a state of phenomenological uncertainty. The second part of the project contains a set of portraits. This is the artist’s attempt to enter this new universe and try to take out all of these creatures to our side of reality, to reveal their identity, as if they exist and have names.

Dilbahar Askari (*1992) lebt und arbeitet in Bern.

Ihr Schreiben bewegt sich zwischen Lyrik und Prosa. Vor dem Master Contemporary Arts Practice im Bereich Literarisches Schreiben/ Übersetzen hat sie Philosophie studiert. Ihre Texte wurden in verschiedenen Literaturmagazinen veröffentlicht.

Artist Statement

Der Text Die Vorübergehenden ist eine literarische Erkundung der Strandpromenade als ein Ort verdichteter Sehnsucht. Stilistisch ist der Text zwischen Erzählung und Essay, zwischen Prosa und Lyrik angesiedelt. Die gebrochenen Zeilen ermöglichen einerseits das Mitklingen weiterer Bedeutungsebenen, verweisen anderseits auf die Brüchigkeit, um die es auch inhaltlich geht: die gebrochene, da kapitalistisch überformte Sehnsucht (nach der Natur, nach wirklicher Beziehung, nach einer anderen Gesellschaft), die der Promenade eingeschrieben ist, sowie die grundlegende Brüchigkeit, die irgendwo „verstellte“ Nähe einer (transaktionsförmigen) pflegerischen Beziehung.

Ana Durán Garizurieta (AG), born in the body of a Mexican. Currently a student of the Master of Contemporary Arts Practice at HKB. Studied the Bachelor of Visual Arts at HEAD, Geneva, and graduated with honours.
For now, interested in exploring the intricacies of sound ontology and epistemology, as well as the physicality and presence inherent in sound. Driven by a desire for connection, AG delves into how sound serves as a medium for intra-action, relationships between beings and their environment. Through attentive listening, highlighting the a-liveness of matter, and experiences the present moment with acute sensitivity. Extending towards attaining various states of awareness. Furthermore, deeply invested in upcycling materials and trying minimal impact on the planet. An ongoing dialogue between sound, matter, and the receiver, exploring the potential hybridizations that emerge from these interactions.

Artist Statement

SONO_A/BIOGENESIS

Within an ecosystem, sonic interactions emphasize the interconnectedness of a/biotics. In this work, sound acts as the binding agent, a medium through which we connect to the vast web of existence, highlighting the interdependent nature of life.

Bottles, windows, tables, bulbs, mirrors, lenses, shelves, screens, fiber optics: Can you imagine an existence without this?

Upcycling glass transforms discarded objects into vibrant entities, suggesting that matter possesses a form of aliveness akin to our own. Objects become dynamic participants in existence.

Sound and matter/mattering share a relationship of mutual transmutation. This existence relies on the interplay between sound, space, and matter, each breathing life into the other.

JONATHAN FRIGERI
born in Lugano in 1978
living and working between Geneva, Brussels and Bienne

Jonathan Frigeri is a sound/radio artist, performer and artistic director or in a more unconventional definition he is a speleologist artist and psychic engineer working between art and technology. He tries to use technology with a lo-fi approach in order to reveal critical thinking through a poetic perfume. The media are peeled off and questioned in their communicative, social and philosophical functions. Pushing the borders and limits of a possible reality in order to see and hear behind the curtains and to deal with the space in between, between here and there.

He is the founding director of the Institute for Research on Radio and Magic (IIRRM) which is dedicated to finding imaginary solutions at the frontier between technology and magic.

Artist Statement

The project blends elements of experimental music, sound art, performance, ritual, lecture and live radio drama. It is a divagation; it wanders throughout the questions of the matter of the radio, the radiophonic space and its relationship with the human being.

We can locate these divagations of thought, in a hybrid form, halfway between the fantastic tale, a scientific experiment, a story of ideas around the radio medium and a gradual shift to the occult. A rite sets in to give a new experience to listeners between hypnosis, magic, and witchcraft gradually towards a more collective form of communion.

Romain Iannone (born in Switzerland) lives and works between Bern and Sion. Previously studying and making projects in the field of fine arts, he is now more focused on sound, navigating between experimental and indie pop rock, finding ways to merge both worlds.

Artist Statement

By adopting some iconic guitar hero postures, I aim to blend elements of rock culture with digital and technological culture, using a core object of our current occidental world. My smartphone is attached to the head of my guitar, functioning as a sensor that tracks my movements and position in space. The data received by my computer directly influences the sound produced by my guitar. These guitar hero postures are performed in slow motion, allowing me to focus on listening and exploring sound textures in a virtual space.

Nadja Karpinskaya (*1979, Russia) lives and works in Bern, CH.

Formerly a visual artist, in the last couple of years Nadja Karpinskaya has also preferred to work at the intersection of different artistic fields and disciplines: photography, performance, and sound art. Nadja consistently continues to be drawn to textiles as a medium. She often works with space, interacting with it in different ways: through installation art, land art or performance methods.

2021-2024:
MA Contemporary Arts Practice, Bern Academy of the Arts, Bern, CH.

1996-2023:
BA Visual Arts, Moscow, State Academy of the Slavic culture, Moscow, Russia.

Artist’s portfolio on Instagram: @nadja.karpinskaya

Artist Statement

Aura of a place, 2024
The typical urban views of Bern and Biel were used as material to reflect on the genre of landscape in photography. In her search for ways to describe and represent personal and public spaces, as well as places and non-places, the author gradually moves from the notion of boundaries that isolate spaces like shells to the notion of aura proposed by Walter Benjamin in his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936).
The notion of aura in the title of this work does not have an esoteric connotation, but is intended to emphasise the author’s interest in the property of space to be open and to attract with its individuality.
Reflecting the contemporary accessibility of photography and its processing, the artist begins her project with a series of images taken with a mobile camera. But then a journey of transformation begins, involving digital processing, riso printing on paper, high resolution scanning, digital printing on textiles and working with light and space.

Née en 1998, Laetitia Khiara est une artiste sonore, performeuse et musicienne domicilier à Fribourg. Elle obtient son Bachelor en Arts Visuels à l’ECAL en 2021 avec mention. En 2020, elle gagne une bourse de la Fondation Walter + Eve Kent pour son travail « Séparé d’un espace, on produit des distances sans frontières ». En 2021, elle fonde le duo d’électro clashpop eggs and tiaras avec Mara Meier. Le duo faisant partie de la sélection 2023-2024 du programme d’encadrement pour artiste Embrayage à la Case à Chocs c’est rencontré lors de leurs études à l’ECAL.

La pratique artistique de Laetitia s’articule autour du corps, du son, de la musique et de l’écriture. Une situation spécifique, un geste voire habitude sont autant d’éléments qu’elle déplace et intègre lors d’une performance ou à l’aide d’un autre médium. Elle puise dans l’environnement ordinaire, qu’elle emploie comme source de nouvelles situations. Son art se caractérise par une écriture qui explore les thèmes de l'absurde et de la dérive, offrant ainsi un regard critique et poétique sur le banal.

Artist Statement

Un.e auditeur.trice.x expérimente l’environnement sonore à travers sa cosmologie, de par sa réalité et son expérience propre. Les sons mémorisés sont spécifiquement liés aux lieux et aux souvenirs expérimentés. Avec la méthode du field-recording, du traitement audio puis du collage, Laetitia Khiara nous évoque de nouveaux paysages en jouant avec nos souvenirs et les fictions qui en découlent. Dans ce travail, elle intervient par des mises en relation entre différents environnements : du soundscape commun à la création de paysages dystopiques, les possibilités narratives sont plurielles et induisent une expérience aux temporalités diverse convoquant la mémoire de l’auditeur.trice.x et un voyage dans les ailleurs de nos futurs possibles.

Puis, la curiosité. C’est la surprise. Ce qui est rendu audible après une écoute. Je plonge dans un soundscape d’intempéries. Plus tard, je décide de remettre mes écouteurs. La musique n’arrive pas à camoufler l’extérieur. Parfois, les bruits me poursuivent et je me surprends à regarder derrière moi. Paranoïa. Ce sont les sons de ma track d’acidcore que j’entends, ou c’est l’extérieur qui joue au jeu des fantômes ? Je suis victime de mon environnement. Mes assaillants veulent me perdre. Les sons sont assassins.

Jasmin Kiranoglu (*1993, Hamburg, DE) grew up in Antalya, Berlin and Munich and has lived and worked mainly in Bern, CH since 2013.

Jasmin Kiranoglu is a performance artist who works around empathy, human vulnerability and psychological and physical resilience. She currently uses the orange as an organic, intermedial object, tool and symbol to explore these themes.

2013-2016: B.A. in Acting, Bern University of the Arts
2016-2018: M.A. in Expanded Theater, Bern University of the Arts
2021-2024: M.A. in Contemporary Art Practice, Bern University of the Arts 2022/23: Erasmus and Research Exchange, Modern Dance, Fine Arts, Mimar Sinan University of the Arts, Istanbul

She recently presented her performance “The Lost Juice” with sound artist Matthias Jöel at the “JETZT KUNST” foundation and at the Kulturesk Festival in the Grosse Halle, Reitschule, Bern (23/24). Her exhibition/performance “Portakal Radikal” can be seen at the gallery “ToBE” Bern (23). She shows her performance “Separation, Reparation, Vanishing” at the “migma” performance festival “all i can carry” at Kunstpavillon, Lucerne (22). She performs “DIVIDE” as part of the Fluid Academy “Maximal Energy Minimal Time” at the Museum Tinguely, Basel (22). “UNCOVER” can be seen at Theater Stadelhofen, Zurich; Schlachthaus Theater, Greller Keller, Bern; HAJDE Festival, Novi Sad; BAFF Festival, Basel; Previewarts Gallery, Istanbul (19-21).

In addition to her own artistic practice, she can also be seen in theater and dance contexts, e.g., in the performative theater walk "Stadt der Katzen" as Cleopatra, Bern (23), or in the contemporary movement girl band "The Bernese Yonis" at the BETA Festival at Tanzhaus Bern (21/22).

Artist Statement

Ein Raum. Ein Körper. Orangen. Schreie. Risse. Fruchtwasser. Auflösung. Geteilt. Zerquetscht. Zusammengebracht. Es fliesst. Duft. Saft. Stiche. Eine Introspektive.

(EN)
One room. One body. Oranges. Screams. Cracks. Amniotic fluid. Resolution. Divided. Crushed. Brought together. It flows. Scent. Juice. Stitches. An introspective.

My work explores empathy, healing, and the fragmentation of the body, sound, and fruit. Using oranges as a symbol and organic material, I examine psychological and physical human vulnerability, as well as their sensuality, materiality, color, and form.

Bernadette Kolonko, geboren 1985, ist Filmemacherin, Autorin und künstlerische Forscherin. Nach einem Regiestudium an der Filmuniversität Babelsberg, begann sie ab 2019 an der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste zu feministischen Ästhetiken im zeitgenössischen Spielfilmkino zu forschen. 2023 veröffentlichte sie dazu ihre Publikation «Unsichtbares und Ungesagtes – 10 Female*Feminist*Gazes» im Schüren Verlag.

Sie schreibt Texte über Gender und Film, auf der Suche nach anderen Formen des Erzählens und arbeitet als dramaturgische Beraterin. Sie unterrichtet an Filmhochschulen zu queer-feministischer Filmarbeit und Essayfilm und gibt Workshops u.a. in der Roten Fabrik Zürich. Sie kuratiert Veranstaltungsreihen wie das Diversity Cinema der ZHdK oder macht Gast-Kurationen u.a. am Internationalen Frauenfilmfestival Köln-Dortmund. Ihre Kurzfilme UN_SICHTBAR und DEINE SCHÖNE GESTALT liefen international auf Festivals u.a. Palm Springs Festival, Max Ophüls Preis, Kurzfilmtage Winterthur.

In ihrem Literatur-Master am CAP erkundete sie nun tiefergehend die literarische Sprache, um ihre eigene Geschichte erzählen zu können, die sie schon lange mit sich herumträgt.

Artist Statement

Meine unmögliche Geschichte ist nicht dann zu Ende erzählt, wenn sie zusammenhält, sondern wenn sie auseinandergefallen ist.

Der Text Milchmeer ist ein Roman, der aus der Fiktionalisierung von Erinnerungen meiner Kindheit und Jugend gewachsen ist. Da ist der Körper des Mädchens in seinen Berührungen mit Menschen, Materialien und persönlichen und politischen Grenzen. Und da ist das sauer geworden Milchmeer, das immer wieder bis zum Hals steht.

Aus der Perspektive der Ich-Erzählerin werden Fragmente einer Kindheit und Jugend in einem bayrischen Dorf erzählt, die geprägt sind von immer wiederkehrenden Gewalterfahrungen, aber auch von Aufbegehren und Lust, dieser Welt zu entfliehen, sei es in Form von Sprache, durch Gesten des Widerstands oder auf der Suche nach dem Blick in die Weite.

Erin Mallon (*1989, CA, USA) lives and works in Basel, CH. Her work as an artist and writer unites biographical and fictive elements to formulate questions about the role of the everyday in artistic production – and vice versa. Whether it’s in essays which investigate the narrating and reading instances’ proximity to the text; in stories which immerse the reader in the intimate space of a narrator’s sensorial reality; or in installations which reshape the receptive experience of a text; her work is concerned with situations, and the ways we make sense of things within them.

2009-2012: BA Art and design Education (HGK FHNW)

2012-2015: MA Art and design Education (HGK FHNW)

Mallon works as a freelance translator in the field of artistic research and as Coordinator for the Swiss Artistic Research Network (SARN). From 2015-2020 she was active in the artist collaboration Haystack News. She teaches regularly as a guest lecturer at the Institute for Art and Design Education at the HGK FHNW.

Her essay “Diese Vehemenz” was published in Narr #33: Adelheid Duvanel in 2022. She has exhibited, among others, at DOCK, Basel, CH; Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel, CH; MUU Center for Contemporary Art, Helsinki, FI; Chaynaya Fabrika, Odessa, UA; Spaceness Performance Festival, Longview, WA, USA. In 2022 she was an artist in residence at the Old Mine Residency in Outokumpu, FI.

Artist Statement

Erin Mallon’s writing is concerned with the ambiguity of belonging. In Ocean View, the reader follows a young woman during the course of a day and two nights on a trip to the city. Alice and her squirm travel with a slew of questions in tow: What’s history taste like, and how do you know when a story ends? What choices are really in your hands?
Alice’s story is propelled by the pursuit of a tug she can’t quite grasp, and Ocean View directs its attention as much at the emotional landscape as the material dispositions of Alice’s path. From the sensuous to the foul, a keen awareness for sensation – coupled with the narrator’s persistently self-ironic tone – reveal an immersive physicality in the most mundane situations and acts.
Ocean view appears in the frame of the CAP diploma festival in both English and German versions. Written and translated parallel into and out of each other, the two versions have lost their status of original and translation and stand as twin tellings of how a writing practice engages with its own conditions of production.

Martian M. Mächler [keine/they] (*1991, in Schübelbach SZ) lebt in Zürich. Martian M. Mächler arbeitet mit Text, Performance und Sound in meist mehrteiligen Projekten, am liebsten in Kollaborationen. Im Vordergrund stehen dabei Auseinandersetzungen mit gesellschaftlichen Normen und den Sprachen, durch welche sie geformt und erhalten werden. Nebst genauer Beobachtung derer Zusammenhänge, ist es Martian M. Mächler wichtig durchlässige und wahrnehmbare Alternativen zu erarbeiten, die auch weitergetragen werden können.

2023 wurde Mächlers narrativer Gedichtband i left my body behind von Wasteland in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Kunstmuseum Luzern veröffentlicht. Mächlers Arbeiten wurden in der Schweiz, Deutschland, den Niederlanden und den USA ausgestellt, u.a. im Kunstmuseum Luzern (in Kollaboration mit Esther Vorwerk & André Veigas P., 2023); Kunsthalle Bern (in Kollaboration mit Ludwig Schilling, 2022) und im Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau (2020). Mächler hat u.a. an folgenden Orten performt und gelesen: Cabane B*, Bern (2024), Cabaret Voltaire, Zürich (2023), Plateaux Festival, Samstagern (2019); DeAppel, Amsterdam (2017).

Vor dem MA Contemporary Art Practice hat Martian M. Mächler an der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste den BFA in Fine Arts mit Auszeichnung abgeschlossen, sowie am Dutch Art Institute in Arnheim (NL), am Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland OR (USA) und an der Universität Zürich (Computerlinguistik & Sprachtechnologie, Kunstgeschichte und Anglistik) studiert.

Artist Statement

In Heimsuchen – oder Wo kann ich mich einfach mal ausruhen? geht es um eine Person. Es geht auch um ein Zimmer, das im Kopf der Person schwebt – wieder und wieder kreist es um sich selbst, wie ein Kreisel, der sich einbohrt und dort, wo erinnert wird, steckenbleibt. Das Zimmer widerspricht linearer Zeit. Es beherbergt mindestens die Jahre 1992, 1999, 2003, 2024 und 2030, ist aber auch jetzt.

In dem Zimmer wartet eine Person, bis der Psychiater die Person in sein Zimmer ruft. Die Person wartet, damit der Psychiater einen Bericht mit den benötigten Nummern verfasst. Die Person wartet, um z.B. Zugang zu einem Gel zu erhalten. Die Person wartet, damit die Haare dicker, die Oberschenkel muskulöser und die Stimme tiefer werden können. Die Person wartet, um von anderen Personen gefragt zu werden, ob die Person erkältet oder gerade aufgestanden ist, weil die Worte wie die ersten Worte eines neuen Tages klingen. Die Person wartet, um gesehen zu werden. Die Person wartet, um gehalten zu werden.

Muzi - Matilde Soldati (*1995, Lugano, CH) lives and works in Bern, CH.

The term ‘nature’ is a complex one, and it is this very complexity that drives Muzi to explore the intri- cate relationship between humans and other animals and living beings on multiple levels. Through her mixed-media artistic practice, she navigates various paths, shedding light on the challenges of interspecies relationships and communications. Her pieces traverse different worlds, inviting us to question our human way of perceiving, experiencing, and understanding others.

2017-2020: Bachelor’s degree with honors at the École de Design et Haute école d’art du Valais (EDHEA), Sierre, CH
2019-2020: Founding member and vice president of big bang espace d’explosition, Sierre, CH 2020: Prix EDHEA de la Fondation Bea pour Jeunes Artistes, EDHEA, Sierre, CH
2020: Residency organized in collaboration with the Palp Festival, Bruson, CH
2020-2021: Residency at the Atelier Templin, Cultural Center Ferme-Asile, Sion, CH
2021: Residency in the Van VS 104 738, Sion, CH

Artist Statement

My artistic practice merges with my fascination for everything that the living imprints, inhabits, and occupies on a physical or conceptual level. The pieces mainly challenge our human perception of other animals and their environment in conjunction with a possible appropriation of what we consider “human being territory”. Another emerging topic is the consequences of using other living beings’ images, stories, and aesthetics to communicate through art and in a human environment. From an artistic point of view, these queries consider the consequences of the abstraction, conceptualization, and materialization of an animal.
The results are mixed-media-material artworks in which other living beings, in transmission with the whole piece, evolve into a means to transport other possible narratives in a human cultural environment. I view my pieces as a dynamic space of confrontation, where potential interspecific and interdisciplinary discourses can be challenged, induced, or melted.

Kasia Oleśkiewicz [she/her] (*1998, Poland) currently lives and works in Bern, Switzerland.

Kasia is a visual artist, art theoretician and researcher. Her artistic practice is focused on topics of body, violence and animality. Her main media are sculpture, drawing and painting.

2023 – 2024 MA in Contemporary Arts Practice, University of the Arts in Bern, CH

2023 Course in Queer Art and Queer Curating, Node Center, Berlin, DE

2021/2022 MA in Fine Arts (Erasmus exchange), Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, IT

2019 – 2022 BA in History of Art, University of Warsaw, PL

2018 – 2023 MA in Sculpture, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, PL

Instagram: @kasia_oleskiewicz @thefarmproject.art

Artist Statement

I am a visual artist. My main media are sculpture, drawing and painting. I often work with second hand materials, among other metal and textiles.

The topics I take up are connected to bodily sentience, pain, violation, the position of a body as “given over to another” (Judith Butler). I extend this parameter to all, any bodies – including other than human beings into this narration about a body, suffering, protection. Erasing borders between human and nonhuman allows me to search for my own animality and plurality. This way social issues and self-portraits merge, through a deep identification with the Other.

The show Broken Beasts at Schlachthof Kulturzentrum presents selected works from my series Untamed, which is an ode to a body, in its sentience and vulnerability. It’s a call for safety and respect for all the bodies, a try-out at reclaiming the body from interpretations, conventions, standards and control.

Andrea Cindy Raemy (*1980, Fribourg, CH) lives and works in Biel/Bienne and Bern. Her sculptural and installation works are process and experience-based, and explore the transformative agency of materials, craft and assemblage. Her work is situated in the field of tension between the established and the imaginary, challenging prevailing narratives.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and is completing a Master’s degree in Contemporary Arts Practice at the University of the Arts in Bern (HKB), with a focus on Fine Arts. Her works have recently been shown at Kunsthalle Bern in Bern, Musée jurassien des Arts in Moutier, Bacio in Bern, Cabane B* in Bern, Kunsthaus Biel in Biel/Bienne, WallStreet in Freiburg, Le Commun in Geneva and al_vista in Zurich.

Artist Statement

Strength, resilience and power are attributes that are associated with broad shoulders. But who has them, and in which situations in our everyday are they a prerequisite? In her work Broad Shoulders, Andrea Cindy Raemy explores these questions and investigates possible substitutes. To do this, she listens to music such as Pjluk by Cecile Believe, for example, and draws inspiration from costume design, consumer goods and spectacle. She explores the blurred lines between inner dynamics, internalized beliefs and external expectations. Her aim is to challenge traditional narratives and existing social constructs.

Tim Rod (*1992, Bern, CH) lives and works in Bern, CH.

His work often explores issues related to exile and habitat, rootlessness and rootedness, as well as memory, identity, belonging and travelling. His own roots and family history are one of the central elements of his practice and his research, alongside collective visual culture. While his practice remains strongly rooted in photography, his works often expand into site-specific multimedia installations.

- 2015-2018 Bachelor in Art Education, HKB, Bern

- 2017-2018 Exchange semester in finearts, Belas Artes, Lisbon

- 2019-2021 Formation supérieure en photographie, CEPV, Vevey

- 2021-2024 Master in Contemporary Arts Practice, HKB, Bern

His work has been exhibited since 2018 in Switzerland and internationally since 2021. Recent exhibitions include L’Été sans fin (Festival Images, Vevey, 2020), Genesis (Hackney Downs Studios, London, 2021), Charta Bookfestival (Rome, 2021), Photobook Award Encontros Da Imagem (Braga, Portugal, 2021), European Photobook Month (Hongkong, 2022) and Galerie Bernhard Bischoff & Partner (Bern, Switzerland, 2023). He has been nominated or shortlisted to several major Swiss and international awards. His project Don’t forget the Knifish was awarded the special mention of the near.prize 2021. The same year, he won the vfg Young Talent Award for Photography with the project À demain inshallah.

Website Links:

https://www.futures-photography.com/artists/tim-rod

https://www.near.li/en/photographers/photographer/tim-rod/portfolio/

Artist Statement

Tim Rod draws from his photo archive of the last ten years and brings a collection of images into the space. It’s a reflection of his own visual world, which over time threatened to fade into obscure oblivion. The mostly digitally stored negative scans, originating from analog sources, become fleeting, invisible data. With his exhibition, he aims to make the images visible again, restore their tactile qualities, and allow them to speak for themselves, with each other, and within the space. Thus, a portrait taken nine years ago finds itself next to a landscape shot taken a few months ago, forming a new connection together. However, no decision remains final: a combination that seems right today may feel wrong again tomorrow. The infinite possibilities of combining images contradict the initial desire for control that the artist aimed for in his master thesis. The countless captures born from an insatiable interest in the surface of life become an organic network in the space, seemingly taking on a life of its own. Many small stories merge into a whole and, as an installation, grow into a new narrative once again.

Juliana Santacruz is an artist who works in various fields as a percussionist, performer, sound artist, and educator. Based in Bern, Switzerland, she has established herself as a versatile and accomplished artist. She holds a Master's degree in Percussion Performance from the University of the Arts Bern HKB, where she graduated with honors. Currently, Juliana is pursuing a Master's degree in Contemporary Artistic Practice - Sound Arts (CAP) at the same institution.

Her work is characterized by addressing important themes in her daily life, such as politics, gender, and feminism, integrating them with new music, improvisation, experimentation, and musical theater. She actively participates in the research and creation of electroacoustic music and collaborates with various groups and collectives such as Foyer 41, XYZ, OHR, and Delay-diz.



Artist Statement
Cuerpos Migrantes
Bodies care for and support each other, reminding us that we are all connected in some way. As individuals, as migrants, as human beings, as living and non-living creatures, as elements, and as part of space and time. In this scenario, matter and energy merge in an eternal embrace, reminding us that we all share the same origin, the same essence. Symbiosis, which stems from the Greek words meaning “together” and “to live”, occurs when different types of living organisms or bodies come into close contact, blend, and coexist. It’s like an embrace that illustrates that we’re all connected and share the same origin and essence.

In this piece, we explore different entanglements through bodily movements. How can we be responsible for each other, for ourselves? How do we take care of everything that is a part of us, both internally and externally? What can we do to help? In this space, we wish to immerse ourselves in the magic of our interconnectedness, recognizing how important it is to care for and help each other.

Elsa Schärrer was born in Geneva in 1999. She studied philosophy and modern French at the UNIL (Lausanne), before a master's degree in creative writing at the HKB (Bern) and La Cambre (Brussels). She has just finished writing her first novel. She has also taken part in the creation of a poetry magazine for young authors. Furthermore, she is passionate about literature and textual analysis in general. She also studied dramatic art for many years at the Geneva Conservatory and enjoys performing her readings. Indeed, she believes that oral reading is the only way to truly offer the text in its entirety. In Brussels, she has taken part in numerous public readings, notably of her current text.

Artist Statement

Elsa Schärrer’s work is first and foremost a search for resonances, melodies and images. She shapes her writing like a score, reading and rereading sentences until they flow. Like river water. And like a river, the eddies come, but the plot is never the main thing. The narrative is perhaps just an excuse. An excuse, or the canvas from which silence can emerge. For this is also the great quest: to trace its contours.

One winter’s night, Alma walks along, the muffled sound of snow guiding her to a kebab shop. There she meets Emer, who is so different from her, but who, she believes, looks at the world in a certain way, in an informal way, as if before the words. Because a few more things appear when he’s around. But this is neither love nor friendship; what binds them together is this relationship with the world and the feeling that they speak together through it. Each will run away from where they grew up because they want to live without moderation. Their journeys will lead them to explore the limits of the world and their own solitudes.

La montagne aura la couleur de la montagne appears as part of the CAP diploma festival. It’s a novel in which things seem to be crossed by an indefectible pneuma, which sometimes guides, sometimes loses. The gaze is the only sense that allows a true approach to reality, a gaze that is sometimes excessive, crushing and elevating those who use it.

Moni Jia Rui Scherer (they/them) (b. 1995, Singapore) is a German-Singaporean artist who uses photography and text to investigate how factors such as class, sexuality, gender, and cultural background shape our relationships and sense of self. Raised in a biracial Catholic-Chinese family, they utilize storytelling and ethnographic methods to examine the spaces where identities shift and connections emerge.

Moni holds a BA in Camera Arts (Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts) and is currently pursuing an MA in Contemporary Arts Practice (Bern Academy of the Arts). Their artistic practice has been enriched by participation in workshops, including the International Summer School of Photography in Latvia (2019) and the Nikon-NOOR Academy Masterclass in Vienna (2019).

Their work has been featured in various group exhibitions, including of Corse – photographs (Kulturstiftung Basel H. Geiger, Basel, 2022-2023) and the lila.20 queer festival (Rote Fabrik, Zurich, 2020), as well as in publications such as 041 - Das Kulturmagazin (2021). Moni has received grants from institutions such as FONDS RESPECT and the City of Baden.

Based in Bern, they share forest adventures (often from behind a tree) and a well- deserved dinner after a day’s work with their companion Sappho, for whom Moni is the designated belly scratcher.

Artist Statement

My work explores the intersections of identity, intimacy, and power. I focus particularly on the realms of queerness and cultural heritage. Through personal narrative and visual storytelling, I examine how cultural norms, institutional practices, and systemic inequalities shape our relationships and our sense of self.
borderlands, a multimedia collaboration with photographer Shannon Tomasik, blurs the lines between artistic practice and personal life, staging and authenticity. We document a romantic relationship unfolding alongside our professional collaboration, challenging traditional notions of art and documentation.
The auto-fictional narrative Zwischen Löwenzahn und Hyazinthen further examines the interplay of gender, class, and race in various social and professional settings, demonstrating their impact on our interactions and the complexities of belonging.

Moritz Schönbrodt ist ein osterländischer Puppenspieler, Autor und Puppenbauer.

Am Tag der Deutschen Einheit in Leipzig an der Pleiße geboren und eine Postmeile flussaufwärts aufgewachsen, beschäftigen ihn in seinen Arbeiten die Auswirkungen gesellschaftlicher Transformationsprozesse, Missverständnisse, Unklarheiten und andere Erscheinungsformen von Ambiguität.

Dabei schöpft er seine Mittel aus der weit zurückreichenden Geschichte des Theaters der Dinge und versucht, diese produktiv weiterzuentwickeln.

Als Dramatiker an der Schnittstelle zwischen dem Musik- und dem Puppentheater verbindet ihn eine langjährige Zusammenarbeit mit dem Komponisten Johannes Kürschner.

Artist Statement

SOHLE EINS-ACHTZIG – Ein Kohlenstoff
Sanft knirschte Heikos Schädel, als ihn der Abraum begrub. Seitdem wächst das Gras über ihm, sind Seen entstanden und Wälder gepflanzt worden. Doch am 26. März bricht die Erde auf und mit Heiko taucht nicht nur die Erinnerung an das, was passiert ist, auf – andere Geister, die uns nicht loslassen wollen, treten ebenfalls zutage.

Moritz Schönbrodts Diplomprojekt besteht aus 11 Theaterversstücken, die gemeinsam mit den Mitteln der zeitgenössischen Musik, Puppenspielkunst, mechanischem Theater und einem historischen Klavierspielautomaten das Scheitern am Vergessen der Vergangenheit untersuchen.
SOHLE EINS-ACHTZIG ist Teil der andauernden Suche nach einer puppentheaterspezifischen Literatur und einer Form, die eine Symbiose von Puppentheater und zeitgenössischer Musik ermöglicht.

Evelyn Vonesch *1989 is a Swiss artist working in Bern. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Art and Design in Lausanne (ECAL) and is currently in the Master's program Contemporary Arts Practice at Bern University of the Arts (HKB) and as an exchange student at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Die Angewandte).    

Vonesch works with sculptures, video and sound installations and text to explore the unstable and porous frontiers between the living and the inanimate. She is particularly interested in the similarities between the human and the artificial and how they reflect a magical vision of the border between material reality and imagined reality. Based on research and personal observation of common everyday experience and the manifestation of culture, her practice tries to get to the core of human emotions.  

Artist Statement

Throughout history and in most societies, humans have projected their image onto the puppet. This relation of the human and the puppet exceeds imitation or illusion, it’s a tool to explore identity and culture. The video work present Pupae, becoming thing, 2024 follows the idea that an exchange between human, inanimate and nature creates a unity and a way to retreat from any human belief in being the center of the world. It reveals fixed forms of peculiar human emotions, the power of the fragile rather than the strong, the uncanny order that lays beyond mankind’s grasp, and growth through a full life cycle: complete metamorphosis. A work somewhere between stop and motion.  

Esther Vorwerk [she/her] (*1988, Oldenburg, Germany) writes fictional and scenic texts and creates interactive installations, performances and workshops. In her work she critically engages with issues of body memory, gender, trauma and intersectional discrimination. A major concern of hers is to shape conditions for a more respectful and open communication in the context of discrimination and illness. She investigates her own family history and how the narratives of Nazi Germany are still present today.

Esther Vorwerk studied acting at Mozarteum Salzburg. With Markus Wulf she’s writing the first season of a series for Network Movie Köln and a screenplay for Wüste Film GmbH Hamburg. She forms the artist duos Weather Forecast with Martian M. Mächler and Alaska - Studio for Feelings with Sophie Khan. She received a founder grant from the DesignFarm Berlin and researched the topic of violence against queer FLINTA as part of the flausen+ scholarship.

Her works have been shown in several countries like Austria, Germany, Israel, Switzerland and the USA at venues such as Kaserne Basel (CH), 2727 California Street Berkely (USA), Ballhaus Ost Berlin (DEU), Heimathafen Neukölln Berlin (DEU), Kunstpunkt Berlin (DEU), Theater Labor Bielefeld (DEU), Theater Braunschweig (DEU), University of Jerusalem (ISR), Theater Laboratorium Oldenburg (DEU), Kunstmuseum Luzern (CH), Salzburger Festspiele (AU) and others.

She lives in Berlin and Bern, loves swimming, reading and eating Pommes and secretly always wanted to be a dancer.

Artist Statement
Tired, angry, slow. Unlearning Nazi narratives. Learning to listen

Steven Wyss, geboren 1992 in Thun, studierte vor dem Master in Contemporary Arts Practice Angewandte Sprachen und Übersetzen in Winterthur und Genf. Seit 2019 ist er als freier Übersetzer tätig. 2021 absolvierte er das „Goldschmidt-Programm für junge Literatur*übersetzerinnen“ der Frankfurter Buchmesse. Seitdem widmet er sich hauptsächlich der literarischen Übersetzung. Nach Kurzgeschichten, Gedichten sowie Kinder- und Jugendtexten erschien 2023 seine erste Romanübersetzung (C. F. Ramuz, Sturz in die Sonne). Im Mai 2024 erschien im Limmat Verlag seine Übersetzung von Douna Loups Roman Verwildern. Er lebt und arbeitet in Zürich.

2023 wurde er mit dem Kulturförderpreis der Stadt Thun ausgezeichnet. Im selben Jahr verlieh ihm die Stadt Zürich zudem eine literarische Auszeichnung für seine Übersetzung von C.F. Ramuz’ Sturz in die Sonne.

Artist Statement

Steven Wyss beschäftigt sich neben seiner Arbeit als Literaturübersetzer im Master mit den Grenzen zwischen Übersetzen und Schreiben, mit dem Übersetzen als Prozess und damit, wie wir das Übersetzen nicht als Dienstleistung, sondern als persönliche Text- und Arbeitserfahrung denken können. In seinem Diplomprojekt Zeitschrift für unfertige Literatur macht er solche Themen sichtbar. Die Zeitschrift stellt die Frage, wann ein Text zu Literatur wird, und macht durch den Einblick in eine entstehende Übersetzung – in diesem Fall die Übertragung von C. F. Ramuz’ Roman Terre du ciel ins Deutsche – diese nicht nur als blosses Resultat, sondern als Prozess sichtbar. Das Diplomprojekt umfasst drei Ausgaben der monatlich erscheinenden Zeitschrift. Seine Thesis Beziehung und Zweifel. Zur Ökologie des Übersetzens ist ein experimenteller Essay, der sich mit Ökologie, Sprache, Umwelt und Übersetzung beschäftigt.

Suzanne Zahnd

Schreibt als freie Autorin Prosa, Hörspiele und Theaterstücke.

Für Film und TV verfasst sie Audiodeskriptionen und Übersetzungen, doktert Scripts und poliert Dialoge.

Im JuLL (Junges Literatur Labor, Zürich) arbeitet sie mit Jugendlichen als Schreibcoach.

Davor war sie u.a. Sängerin und Bassistin in verschiedensten festen Formationen (Eugen, Dangermice) oder als Gastmusikerin, etwa bei Die Goldenen Zitronen, Greis, Allschwilposse, Stärneföifi, Boob, Vamos Gygax, Koch-Schütz-Studer etc.) Diverse Tonträger, Konzerte in ganz Europa. Als Slam Poetry-Pionierin gewann sie 2001 mit dem "Team Winterthur" den German International Poetry Slam in Hamburg. In der Gründungsphase von Radio DRS 3 war sie Redakteurin und Moderatorin der Sendung "Sounds!" und veröffentlichte als freie Journalistin Beiträgen in diversen Printmedien in der Schweiz und in Deutschland.

Artist Statement

Suzanne Zahnd befasst sich in ihrem Roman Angemessene Erregung mit Sinn und Unsinn von Konzepten wie Familie, Wurzeln, Nation, Klasse oder Religion. Im Fokus stehen dabei die Fallstricke von Assimilation, Identität, Eigenwahrnehmung/Fremdwahrnehmung und die Unzuverlässigkeit von Erinnerung.

Die Autorin mischt Fiktion und Recherchematerial, das sie aus den Gebieten Europäische Historie, Migrationsforschung, Genetik, Epigenetik, Popkultur und ihrer eigenen Familiengeschichte zusammengetragen hat. Der Text hat ADHS.