Sunderiya Erdenesaikhan’s exhibition at Station Ritz, Niederwald, is extended until September 15, 2024. “Handwerk und Mundwerk” shows the result of the Mongolian photographer three-month residency in Bellwald. During this time, she focused on the traditional foods on Valais and met people who practice the ancient crafts of cheese and rye bread with great dedication, and in turn pass them on to future generations.

Sunderiya’s work has also led to some great collaboration in the region, as Station Ritz will be hosting two events over the summer :

• 07, 16:15 : “Üs em Spiisack” with Roberta Brigger (Riederalp Alp Museum) and Helga Jossen (Rosengang Textile Association)
• 08 17:15 : “Hops and hemp” with Elena & Franz Macherhammer (Bergbrauerei Binn) und Claudia Schwick & Adrian Imfeld (Mia Products Hemp Goms)

These events are organized with the support of Landschaftsparkbinntal, Station Ritz, und Luzia Carlen (exhibition curator).

After her three-months residency in Sierre in 2023, the Georgian artist Maryam Mumladze is presenting her exhibition « Shifting landscapes : the nature of risk » at Kolga Tbilisi Photo.

In August 2023, three days after Maryam Mumladze’s arrival in Switzerland, a huge landslide struck the town of Shovi in Georgia, the artist’s native country. Symbolizing the confrontation between the power of nature and the place of human being within it, this event prompted the photographer to work on the question of environmental risks and their management, particularly in the current context of global warming.

Kolga Tbilisi Photo  is since 2002 a recognized institution of photography that annually hosts exhibitions of world-renowned authors. The photo week includes an international photo competition, invited exhibitions of contemporary and classical photography, and educational activities (workshops, seminars, portfolio discussions).

Kolga Tbilisi Photo will open on May 14, 2024 and will host local and international exhibitions, master classes, seminars, discussions and portfolio reviews to highlight our philosophy of supporting the continued advancement of the art of photography as one of the new forms of media and its promotion.

Saturday 6 April will see the 4th edition of the Festival Suizo in Miraflores, Lima, Peru, organised by the Swiss Embassy in Peru and the Swiss Cultural Fund.

This event aims to strengthen the bonds of friendship between these two mountainous countries, and is being organized as part of the 140th anniversary of bilateral relations between Switzerland and Peru. The mountains, symbolic bridges between Switzerland and Peru, are at the heart of the festival.

The programme includes presentations of sports and tourism initiatives, Swiss cooperation projects, companies and associations, gastronomic stands, children’s shows and cultural projects. SMArt will be present with an exhibition of photographic works by Peruvian artists who have benefited from a residency in Switzerland as part of the programme : Alejandra Orosco, Alejandro Leon Cannock, Sharon Castellanos, Camila Rodrigo, Liz Tasa, Victor Zea as well as Niels Ackermann (CH).

On Thursday 10 April, the FDDM and its director Eric Nanchen will be guests at the Green Film Festival. On this occasion, we will be presenting the short film « Votre Cercle de Vie » in the presence of its director Yannick Barillon. The film reveals the day-to-day activities of 14-year-old Laurent on the family farm in Château-d’Oex. The mission of Laurent and his family is to show how it is possible, through farming and contact with animals, to reconnect with nature.

The short film is part of the « Into the Nature » initiative, a special project of the SMArt Programme that ties in with the programme’s aim of raising awareness through art. The aim is to appeal particularly to young audiences, raising awareness of the importance of nature and its essential role for humanity. Four videos have been produced, featuring inspiring portraits and initiatives in Switzerland and abroad.

« Your Circle of Life » will be followed by the excellent film « Naïs au pays des loups », not to be missed!

CinéSion – Rue des Cèdres 10, 1950 Sion
Thursday 10 April 6pm
Tickets: https://lnkd.in/ejyg8GNv

From 15 to 23 March, and in partnership with the Swiss Cooperation Office in Mongolia, the Mongolian artist Sunderiya Erdenesaikhan will present her exhibition « Countries of Edelweiss » in her country. The exhibition will show the artwork she created during her 3-months residency in Bellwald (Switzerland) on the traditional foods of the Valais and the ancient crafts of cheese and rye bread, as well as the artist’s previous work, on traditional foods of Mongolia. The artwork of Taichar Enkhbat on cities life in Switzerland will also be exhibited.

This exhibition marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relationship between Mongolia and Switzerland.

Opening : 15 March 2024, 5pm, Norphei Art Gallery, Bluemon Center

During her residence in Bellwald, the Mongolian artist Sunderiya Erdenesaikhan focused on the topic of the culinary heritage of Valais. In this context and in collaboration with the Erlebniswelt Roggen, the Grafschat Kultur cooperative and the Binntal Landscape Park, you will learn more about the history of rye cultivation in Valais and the commitment of associations and cooperatives to preserving the rye tradition.

17 February 2024, 16.15-17.30

Station Ritz, Niederwald

Created in 2007, the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) is a state-led, informal and non-binding process, which helps shape the global debate on migration and development. It provides a flexible, multi-stakeholder space where governments can discuss the multi-dimensional aspects, opportunities and challenges related to migration, development, and the link between these two areas. The GFMD process allows governments – in partnership with civil society, the private sector, local and regional governments, youth, the UN system and other relevant stakeholders – to analyze and discuss sensitive issues, create consensus, pose innovative solutions, and share policy and practices. It will happen from 23 to 25 of January 2024 in the CICG, Geneva.

SMArt program will be present at the heart of the CICG with a selection of the artwork of five artists, who worked on the theme of migration during their residency in the frame of the SMArt program: Lavonne Bosman (South Africa), M’hammed Kilito (Morocco), Hasan Belal (Syria), Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo (Colombia) and Yassine Sellame (Morocco).

More information here

During her 3-month residency at artbellwald.ch, Mongolian photographer Sunderiya Erdenesaikhan focused on the traditional foods of the Valais and met people who practice the ancient crafts of cheese and rye bread with great dedication, and in turn pass them on to future generations.

Sunderiya Erdenesaikhan’s photos take us from the craft to the mouth, which, as we all know, is not just for eating, but also for passing on experience and knowledge.

Exhibition : 29.12.2023-28.04.2024, Station Ritz, Niederwald

Opening : 28.12.23, 16:15

The cultural Advent calendar in Brig provides an ideal platform for local artists* to showcase their creations and allows the public to discover the many facets of local cultural creation.

Every evening during the Advent period, the creations of local artists are presented. The basic idea behind the calendar is to get people in the mood for Christmas through culture. In this way, the calendar becomes a place for people to meet, get to know each other and exchange ideas – for creativity and inspiration.

On 15 December, Mongolian photographer Sunderiya Erdenesaikhan will be presenting her project as part of her SMArt residency in Bellwald. She is looking for traditional foods in Valais and parallels to the traditions of her homeland, Mongolia.

On November 28^th, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) organize a rich evening event to present the Swiss contributions to the Global Refugee Forum 2023, which will take place in Geneva in December. The GRF is the largest international gathering on refugees.

Many swiss organizations and government agencies will be attending the GRF and have pledged new initiatives to support refugees and facilitate their integration – both in Switzerland and abroad. On November 28, these Swiss civil society organizations, NGOS and public institutions will showcase their contributions to the GRF and their overall engagement for refugees. SMArt is delighted to be one of them !

November 28, 17:30 – 20:30

Kongresszentrum Krez, Zeughausgasse 41, 3011 Bern

Peruvian photographer Alejandra Orosco spent three months in the alpine village of Bellwald. During this artistic residency, she made a reflection on the less known effects of climate change on the human body. She became interested in stress as a general model of the body’s reaction to the need to adapt to changing conditions.  In her « Symptoms » exhibition, she offers us a series of photos taken under a microscope as well as portraits and landscape photographs, in search of analogies between human and plant organisms and their environment.

Her exhibition will be presented at Centro de la Imagen in Perú from November 17 to December 9.

Opening : November 16, 7pm

Sunderiya Erdenesaikhan is in residency in artbellwald.ch from the beginning of October and to the end of December 2023. She is working on the theme of cultural and local traditions.

On the 18 of November, during the open studio day in Bellwald, you’ll have the chance to visit her and take part in a Mongolian tea ceremony ! Come and be surprised !

In August 2023, three days after Maryam Mumladze’s arrival in Switzerland, a huge landslide struck the town of Shovi in Georgia, the artist’s native country. Symbolizing the confrontation between the power of nature and the place of human beings within it, this event prompted the photographer to work on the question of environmental risks and their management, particularly in the current context of global warming. Shifting landscapes: the nature of risk invites the public to question the significant contrast between man-made infrastructures and the indomitable forces of nature, powerful and persistent, through photographs that are as much documentary as artistic.

Exhibition : 19 of October to 30 of November, L’archipel, Sion

Opening : 19 of October, 18:00

Coffee-meetings with the artist : 24, 25 & 26 of October, 14:00-17:00

Conference « Climate change and natural hazards : scientific and artistic perspective at risk management » : 27 of October, 18:30

Speakers :

– Maryam Mumladze, photographer

– Mathias Carron, forest engineer, Silvaplus

– Eric Bardou, natural hazards specialist, DSM Consulting

– Tristan Brauchli, mountain hydrology specialist, CREALP

During her three-months residency in Monthey, the Chinese artist Yingfei Liang worked on the theme of climate change and glaciers. She focused on the strong connection between Swiss people and glaciers, exploring their emotions towards nature through meetings and interviews of locals and by using mythological narratives.

Her artwork is now shown in Beijing, China, at Three Shadows Photography Art Centre.

Exhibition : 14^th October – 31^st December 2023

During her residency in Val Poschiavo, Lara Chahine worked on the theme of water. Her exhibition « Reality is a movement » is a series of images that expresses the inner emotional landscape of water in Poschiavo through its inhabitants, its facilities, and, of course, the land itself. It is meant to ssrve as a visual commentary on the rapid changes that are happening all around us and the reality of human development in parallel to water.

Opening : 21st September, 5:30pm – 7:30pm at Dar al Mussawir, Lebanon

Exhibition : 21 – 29 September, 11 am – 7pm daily (closed on Saturday an Sunday)

Verzasca Foto aims to promote emerging international photographers and to support visual arts in rural and peripheral areas, by giving free space through connection and dialogues with nature, offering access to different forms of expression and ways of visual storytelling.

The festival takes place in a mountain valley, made up of small villages of stone houses and surrounded by dense, lush nature. An intimate and informal meeting place where participants have the opportunity to share ideas and points of view. During the festival main days you can enjoy outdoor exhibitions, artists presentations, guided visits, meeting, portfolio reviews, night screenings and live music.

For its tenth edition, Verzasca Foto Festival explores the theme “Youth”: an invitation to experiment, a time when everything is waiting to be explored. In the frame of the festival, Colombian photographer Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo, who was in residency during three months in Verzasca Valley, will celebrate the opening of his exhibition “il cuore migra” on Saturday 2^nd of September at 17:00.

Verzasca Foto Festival
30 August – 3 September
The exhibitions are open until October (open the week end from 10 am to 6pm in Casa Azul)

Opening
Saturday 2 September, 17:00, er Piazza, Sonogno

Night of photography
Saturday 2 September, 18:30

More on : Verzasca Foto

Zineb came in residency in the mountain village of Bellwald in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. In her project “Amor Fati”, she showed architectural and landscapes photographs through several series : “House&Home”, “Tempus fugit”, “Landscapes” and “Alentours”.

For her exhibition at ESAV in Morocco, the visual artist opted for a minimalist aesthetic. Through a series of photographs and a video montage, Zineb Andress Arraki comes back on private conditions that threatened her with the loss of her sight, and hopes to makes visitors feel the fragility of our lives. For those who pay attention to the silent transformations that continues to govern nature, it appears in the breathtaking beauty of its perpetual rebirth. Photography resonates with the tragic beauty of landscapes always disappearing, but always beautiful.

Exhibition : 17.05 – 01.09.23, ESAV

During his three months residency in Val Verzasca, Ticino, from mid-June to mid-September 2022, the Peruvian artist Victor Zea met different generations of women and men who decided to migrate to the mountains, in search of a lifestyle more in contact with nature to achieve their own inner balance. The mountains becomes synonymous with a path to one’s own healing.

In his exhibition “Amalgama”, presented during the Verzasca Foto Festival, everyone is “amalgamated” with the elements of nature. This stage in the valleys of Ticino is part of a personal journey consistently linked to what he has been able to lear in the mountains of his place of origin. He finds confirmation of the teaching of the Q’ero who remind us that “we are different expressions of the same unity”.

His exhibition is to be discovered from August 18 to September 16 at Centro de la Imagen.
Mo-Fri : 8am – 9pm
Sa : 8am – 3pm
Opening : August 17, 7pm

The 7th edition of the Alt+1000 Festival will take place from August 26 to September 18, 2023 in the Vallée de la Brévine in the heart of the Neuchâtel mountains. The festival presents the artwork of 17 international artists on the emblematic sites of Lac des Taillères and the MBAL, and pursues its objective of exploring the landscape: « The selected projects contribute to the festival’s objective: to apprehend the notion of landscape, mainly built on the idea of beauty and leisure, in a different light, and to reveal the complex relationships – economic, political, territorial, sociological or even emotional – that shape it ».

As a partner of Alt+1000 festival, SMArt presents a selection of artwork by Lebanese photographer Lara Chahine. During her residency in Poschiavo, Graubünden, in spring 2023, the young artist worked on the theme of water. Arriving during one of the driest periods on record, in a country wrongly considered as an inexhaustible source of water, her work « reality is a movement » encourages us to reflect.

Alt+1000 Festival: 26.08.23 – 18.09.23

Opening: 26.08.23

Program and info: https://www.plus1000.ch/fr/editions/edition-2023

Assuming that culture is a powerful vector to raise awareness, the SMArt program, in partnership with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), promotes intercultural and artistic exchanges with countries of the global South. The « South-South Actions » component of the program aims to encourage exchanges between artists, build bridges between artists, civil society and academics, and pursue discussions on the program’s themes within our partner countries.

On the occasion of International Refugee Day, the Fondation Orient-Occident in Rabat, in partnership with the SMArt program, is inaugurating the « Migration » exhibition curated by Aniko Boehler and Aristide N’dah. It brings together multidisciplinary Moroccan artists: the visual artists Mo Baala and Zineb Benjelloun, and the photographers Ziad Naitaddi and Yassine Sellame, who will reflect on the topic of migration through the lens of their art.

Exhibition: June 21 – July 21, 2023, Fondation Orient-Occident, Rabat

Opening: June 21

During her three months residency in Val Poschiavo (Graubünden), welcomed by the association riverbero, Lara Chahine, from Lebanon, focused on the theme of water in Val Poschiavo.

Exhibition : 27 May – 18 June 2023, from Tuesday to Sunday, 4-7pm
Punto Rosso, Poschiavo

Opening : 27 May, 4pm

Conference :

– 31 May, 8:30pm : « Dolci acqui » readings with Alchemico Tre

– 9 June, 8:30pm : Climate change and mountain environment, with Luca Mercalli

During her stay at the Crochetan in Monthey, the young Chinese photographer Yingfei Liang produced a photographic and video report on the worrying melting of glaciers caused by global warming.

Through this exhibition, Yingfei Liang tries to make us aware of the urgency of preserving a planet that is in bad shape. Her images aims to raise awareness and a sense of responsibility among all actors in society, in order to fight against climate change and its devastating long-term effects on our lifestyles.

Exhibition: 6th May – 28th July, Galerie du Crochetan, Monthey

Public opening in the presence of the artist: Saturday, May 6, 5:30 p.m.
▪ Guided tour with exhibition curator : Julia Hountou
▪ Readings by Carole Epiney
▪ Lecture on glaciers by glaciologist Sarah Morard

In collaboration with the SMArt program and the Chinese photographer Yingfei Liang, the MEEL invites you to participate in a writing workshop to create texts around the theme of glaciers. The texts produced will then become material for the artist who will integrate them into her exhibition which will take place from Saturday 6 May (opening) until mid-July 2023 at the Galerie du Théâtre du Crochetan in Monthey.

More info and registration here

Monday 3 April
19:00 – 21:45
MEEL, Monthey

This week, « Les Dicodeurs » are at the Médiathèque-Valais in Martigny and talk about the exhibition « impACT, What is our footprint ? The photos testify ». In a joyful good mood and always with humour, they look back at the themes of sustainable development, with as guest Sylvie Fournier, the curator of the exhibition.

This week on RTS between 11:30 and 12:30 or to listen again here.

Discover the impACT exhibition until April 22, 2023 at the Médiathèque-Valais in Martigny.

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Cette semaine, « Les Dicodeurs » sont à la Médiathèque-Valais à Martigny et parlent de l’exposition « impACT, Quelle est notre empreinte ? Les photos témoignent ». Dans une joyeuse bonne humeur et toujours avec humour, ils reviennent sur les thématiques du développement durable, avec comme invitée Sylvie Fournier, la commissaire de l’exposition.

A écouter cette semaine sur la RTS entre 11h30 et 12h30 ou à ré-écouter ici.

Découvrez l’exposition impACT jusqu’au 22 avril 2023 à la Médiathèque-Valais à Martigny.

I feel longing is a documentary project realised by Syrian photographer Hasan Belal during his residency in Sierre as part of the SMArt program. It presents parts of lives of a group of migrants in the region. Focusing on the feeling of longing felt by these people from Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan – with whom the artist himself can identify -, the exhibition aims to raise awareness, through the photographic medium, of the feelings of these immigrants in Switzerland.

It is possible to discover this exhibition at the Bibliothèque-Médiathèque of Sierre from January 20 to February 25, 2023. In this context, a writing workshop will take place on Saturday 25 February : this morning workshop proposes to explore the theme of migration and to indulge in some writing exercises, accompanied by Maurane Formaz and Chester Civelli, Valaisan writers.

Animated and directed by the Société des écrivain-e-s valaisan-ne-s section Jeunes.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25 FROM 10 AM TO 12 AM

Open to all from 16 years old. Places are limited.
On registration at the lending service or at Muriel.In-Albon@sierre.ch

« Towards a more sustainable world. Why getting involved? Awareness and professional changes »

The exhibition « impACT. What is our footprint? The photos testify » is a societal perspective, through images from yesterday and today, of what we have done and are still doing to our environment. In the light of a retrospective of the SMArt programme and historical visual testimonies preserved by the Médiathèque Valais – Martigny, the dialogue between archival documents and contemporary photographs restores what constitutes our present and invites us to consider the future differently.

In the frame of this exhibition, the Médiathèque Valais – Martigny in collaboration with the Foundation for sustainable development of mountain regions are organizing a round-table discussion on Thursday the 9th February 2023 at 7pm around the theme : « Towards a more sustainable world. Why getting involved ? Awareness and professional changes ». Our 4 speakers have already decided to change things in their own way and their own scale; they will give us hope and inspiration for the future.

Panel of speakers :

– Laurence Piaget-Dubuis : eco-artist

– Sarah Huber : manager of the Cottier mountain pasture, herbalist and economist

– Lucien Willemin : ex-banker and ex-reald estate developper, author and defendor of the concept of « taking care of life »

– Sandrine Siu : student in environmental sciences, EPFZ

Moderator : Eric Nanchen, director of the FDDM

After his 3-months residency in Monthey in the Crochetan Theatre, Sergio Pinzon presents his exhibition in Colombia, in collaboration with Lugar a Dudas. « Tropicalpinismo » presents a series of images from the Valais region (Switzerland), produced from actions taken on site and referring to a specific way of relating to nature, almost like a fiction: the change of a river’s course in favour of productivity, machines that produce snow and make it last longer, artificial light for sunbathing, a sea with artificial waves and a museum to preserve a breed of dog.

« Tropicalpinismo » is also a fictional work in which two regions of the world, the tropics and the Alps, meet. The project raises questions about natural resources, energy, the coexistence of the organic and the technological, nature, culture and colonialism.

His exhibition is to be dicovered from December 2 to January 31 at Flotante, Bogotà, Colombia.

I feel longing is a documentary project realised by Syrian photographer Hasan Belal during his residency in Sierre as part of the SMArt program. It presents parts of lives of a group of migrants in the region. Focusing on the feeling of longing felt by these people from Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan – with whom the artist himself can identify -, the exhibition aims to raise awareness, through the photographic medium, of the feelings of these immigrants in Switzerland. If longing, depending of the city of origin, of memories, and of the age of his subjects, is at the heart of the project, Hasan Belal also concentrates his work on daily integration of his subjects into Swiss society, shown in photographs as much artistic as documentary, bearing hope and reality.

Exhibition

– Caves de Courten, Sierre : 15-22 December 2022

– Bibliothèque-Médiathèque, Sierre : 20 January – 25 February 2023

Opening : 15 December, 19:00, Caves de Courten
Presence of the artist and curator

Artistic meetings : 20 December, 19:00, Caves de Courten
Guided tour with the photographer and curator
Syrian music with Hekmat Homsi
Stories in multiples languages, with the association Les Pépites d’Or, accompanied by the Armenian violonist Roza

The exhibition « impACT. What is our footprint? The photos testify » is a societal perspective, through images from yesterday and today, of what we have done and are still doing to our environment. In the light of a retrospective of the SMArt programme and historical visual testimonies preserved by the Médiathèque Valais – Martigny, the dialogue between archival documents and contemporary photographs restores what constitutes our present and invites us to consider the future differently.

Opening and Museum Night : 5 November from 1pm to 9pm

Free admission. Animations and performances all day long.

From 1pm – Continuous graphic performance « Empreintes sur miroirs » by the Avocat Studio

3pm – Art workshop « Empreintes sur murs », young public from 6 years old, with the Avocat Studio

5pm – Official part with a sound performance by Laura Morier-Genoud, followed by a concert by Fizzy Beard, on the piano, accompanied by Marine on dance

8pm – Performance and sound fragments from the Valais
Murmures, by Laura Morier-Genoud

Mediation programme :
Round table, artistic workshop, meetings, inclusive readings, stories ..

More info on the website

« Into the nature » is a special project of the SMArt programme that aims to raise awareness of more sustainable ways of living among young people. The first video of the project, « The Roots of the Sky », was filmed by Yannick Barillon and tells the story and commitment of Raed, a farmer, who works in Mount Lebanon.

This video was shown for the first time during the East-West Meetings at Château Mercier and will be visible at the Médiathèque-Valais in Martigny from 5 November during the impACT exhibition. In the meantime, listen to these words from Yannick Barillon who presents the project…

After their 3-months residency in Monthey, Switzerland, the Chinese artists couple Wu Yumo & Zhang Zeyangping present their exhibition Don’t ask anything else to the forests in Beijing, China. Inspired by their long daily walks in the surrounding forest, they have chosen the ancient technique of the cyanotype to highlight the wonderful details that we don’t always pay attention to.

Their exhibition is to be discovered from 6 October to 4 December 2022 at Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing, China.

During his 3-months residency in Monthey, Colombian artist Sergio Pinzón get interested in touristic infrastructures, various installations likely to provoke environmental debates and the sometimes surprising urban developments in Valais. His artistic work consists in a series of experiences documented through photography and video, which invites reflection on the relationship between nature and culture.

Similarly, the photographers Tarek Haddad (Lebanon), Zineb Andress Arraki (Morocco) and Juan Arias (Colombia) – also exhibited as an echo to Sergio Pinzón’s work – show, each in their own way, the strong imprint of man on our natural environment.

Exhibition
Théâtre du Crochetan, Monthey
10^th September to 23^rd November 2022
Monday – Friday, 09:00 – 13:00 and 14:00 – 17:00, and on show nights

Opening and public guided tour
Théâtre du Crochetan, Monthey
Saturday 10 September, 17:30

Sergio Pinzón will also exhibit at the Images Vevey Festival, from September 3 to 25 !

Verzasca Foto aims to promote emerging international photographers and to support visual arts in rural and peripheral areas, by giving free space through connection and dialogues with nature, offering access to different forms of expression and ways of visual storytelling.

The festival takes place in a mountain valley, made up of small villages of stone houses and surrounded by dense, lush nature. An intimate and informal meeting place where participants have the opportunity to share ideas and points of view. During the festival main days you can enjoy outdoor exhibitions, artists presentations, guided visits, meeting, portfolio reviews, night screenings and live music.

For its nine edition and with the theme “Breathing houses”, Verzasca Foto Festival explores houses and the people who live in them. In the frame of the festival, Peruvian photographer Victor Zea, who was in residency during three months in Verzasca Valley, will celebrate the opening of his exhibition on Friday 2^nd of September at 17:00. The night of photography on Saturday 3^rd of September will also be a great moment to discover the artwork of Victor Zea, as well as numerous other artists.

Verzasca Foto Festival
31 August – 4 September
The exhibitions are open until October (open the week end from 10 am to 18pm in Casa della Fotografia)

Opening
Friday 2 September, 17:00, Casa della Fotografia, Gordola

Night of photography
Saturday 3 September, 18:30-24:00, Castello Marcacci

More on : Verzasca Foto

For its eighth edition, the Festival Images Vevey celebrates life together. Every two years, this festival presents a new unique collection of made-to-measure indoor and outdoor photography exhibitions and displays, to be discovered free of charge throughout Vevey. In 2022, 45 artists from some twenty countries will show their artwork. Our connection with others and with our environment, the importance and fragility of social and family ties, the joys and sorrows when the collective and the individual coexist: these are just some of the topics the Festival is looking forward to exploring via “Together. La vie ensemble”.

Sergio Pinzon’s Tropicalpinisme centres around the confrontation of two contrasting environments. Invited for a three-months residency in Monthey, the Colombian artist focused on local infrastructure for tourists and on places that recreate a tropical environment or that use artificial means to propose activities that could be enjoyed outdoors in nature. A solarium, snow cannons and wave simulators are just some of the variations of Switzerland as a land of paradoxes. Sergio Pinzon takes a humoristic look at Switzerland to create a link between developing such technology and global warming.

Exhibition : 3-25.09.22, L’imprimerie

More on : Festival Images Vevey

Mongolian photographer Byamba Batkhuyag is currently in residence in Poschiavo in Graubünden for three months, hosted by the riverbero association. Interested in discovering mountain agriculture applied in different places, Byamba Batkhuyag is discovering a new world, but also realising that the profound knowledge of the elements of those dedicated to a type of agriculture that respects biodiversity is universal.

In the poetic images taken for his first ever solophoto exhibition, Il senso nascosto, we meet cattle breeders and farmers. People linked to their land who value every gift of it, such as those small fruits or flowers that are transformed into food or medicine.

Exhibition

13 August to 4 September 2022

Punto Rosso
Vial da la Stazion – 7742 Poschiavo
Tuesday to Sunday 16.00-19.00
or on request: Tel. 079 781 77 41

Opening

13 August 2022, 16:00

Conferences

17 August 2022, 20:30 – Mountain agriculture and 100% (organic) Valposchiavo

24 August 2022, 20:30 – Meeting with writer and journalist Marco Albino Ferrari

Climate change is often firstly associated with extreme weather events, and rising temperatures seem to affect primarily nature. We don’t think much about the consequences for the human body. This is not the case for Alejandra Orosco, who during her 3-month residency in Bellwald worked on the human body’s reactions to those changes. She therefore looked at stress as a general reaction to changing conditions. Stress is thus also a phenomenon affecting plants. With the help of local organic farmers, a botanist and an environmental scientist, Alejandra tried to understand how plants react to climate change.

In her exhibition Symptoms, she presents a series of microscopic photographs as well as portraits and landscape pictures, looking for analogies between human, plants, and their environment.

Exhibition

26^th June to 11 September 2022

In the cellar of the Jost Sigristen House and on the hiking trail to the Mosshubu (Galgenweg), Ernen

Daily 10h-18h / On concert days until 20h

Opening

25^th June, 16h15

Meeting point: Ernen village square

Public guided tour

In collaboration with the Welt im Dorf Project

9^th July, 16h15

Meeting point: Ernen village square

The fifth edition of the Mulhouse Biennial of Photography, Corps Célestes, evokes a fascination with the cosmos, the stars and the imagination which accompanies them. The artwork of three SMArt artists will be exhibited : “Ce soir, la Lune rêve avec plus de paresse” presents the points of view of Xiaoyi Chen, Stephanie Montes and Jorge Panchoaga. During their three-month residency in Valais (Switzerland), these photographers focused on what connected them to nature, revealing in the process the enchantment of the sky and the celestial objects inhabiting it and inviting us to be amazed by their captivating splendour.

June 10^th – August 27^th, Galerie de la Bibliothèque Grand’Rue, Mulhouse

More on : Mulhouse Biennial of Photography

Invited for a three-months residence in Monthey (CH), the Chinese artists Wu Yumo and Zhang Zeyangping tested the links and tensions between the individual and nature. The works resulting from an exploration of different conditions and techniques, both photographic and acoustic, evoke the impermanence of things and the fragility of nature, but also its responsiveness and strength.

Wu Yumo & Zhang Zeyangping will show their artwork at Recover, the 25th edition of the Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography from May 6 to 29.

Opening

6 May, 18:00

More on : Bielerfototage

The exhibition « Graines de vie » presents a selection of SMArt artworks, with the views of Btihal Remli (Morocco), Sharon Castellanos (Peru) and Hosein Jaddad (Morocco). The three artists, each with their own perspective, highlight the work of the earth and of the plant world, inviting us to become aware of the link between man and his environment and to rediscover the way to nature.

Exhibition
Espace 100 titres, Bibliothèque-Médiathèque de Sierre
6th May to 30th June 2022
Monday – Saturday, 09:00-12:00, 13:30-18:00, except Tuesday 19:00 and Saturday 17:00

Opening
5^th May, 18:00

Activity “Beauty through plants”
4^th June, 10:00-12:00
Max. 10 people, minimum age : 12 years
Only on registration : pret@sierre.ch or 027 452 02 51

During their residency at the Theatre du Crochetan in Monthey, Wu Yumo & Zhang Zeyangping immersed themselves almost everyday in the surrounding forest during long random walk. Their meditative artistic work, based on the principle of active contemplation, proposes a return to nature. The duo first produced an artists’ book, handcrafted in China, and composed of poetic collages of flowers and leaves that trace their harvest and represent a source of inspiration. They have chosen the ancient technique of the cyanotype, a printing method that allows them to capture the imprint of the collected plants and to highlight the wonderful details that we don’t always pay attention to. Wu Yumo & Zhang Zeyangping rehabilitate the art of listening to nature, and invite to take care of it with the greatest respect.

Exhibition

Théâtre du Crochetan, Monthey
7^th May to 15^th July 2022
Monday – Friday, 09:00 – 13:00 and 14:00 – 17:00, and on show nights

Opening

7 May, 17:00
17:00 Soundwalk by the association Le Chant des Lieux
18:00 Speech of the FDDM and Julia Hountou, curator of the exhibition

Climate change, loss of biodiversity, growing expectations of wine consumers: faced with these various challenges, many winegrowers have decided to move towards other forms of production. During his 3-month residency at Château Mercier as part of the SMArt program, the Moroccan photographer Hosein Jaddad had the opportunity to attend the grape harvest. He developed his artistic work around vineyard landscapes and the way they are worked. Through his pictures, the artist also decided to show the biodiversity surrounding the vineyards.

His exhibition Between the vineyards live the butterflies is going on until 20^th March 2022 in the Théâtre Les Halles, in Sierre.

In the framework of this exhibition, and in partnership with the CIRM, the SMArt programme is organizing an evening conference around the theme of viticulture and biodiversity in Valais on Thursday, 3^rd March. During this evening, Mrs. Maéva Besse, curator of the exhibition, will present the artist’s work. The guided tour will be followed by a round table on climate change in the vineyards, challenges of biological culture and biodynamic.

Members of the panel:

• Jean-Michel Fallot, Climate Researcher, Institute of Geography and Sustainability, University of Lausanne
• Christian Blaser, local bio Winemaker
• Alexandre Grandjean, Anthropologist, Institute for Social Sciences for Religions, University of Lausanne.

Exhibition
Between the vineyards live the butterflies – Hosein Jaddad
21^st January – 20^th March 2022
Théâtre Les Halles, Sierre

Conference
Viticulture and biodiversity in Valais
Thursday 3^rd March 2022, 19pm – 21pm
Théâtre Les Halles, Route ancien Sierre 13, Sierre

During his residency in Sierre, at Château Mercier, the Moroccan artist Hosein Jaddad became interested in the topic of agriculture and its impact on the environment. Having the opportunity to participate in grape harvest with local winemakers, he decided to develop his artistic work around the vineyard landscape, how it is being exploited, as well as the problems faced by local producers. Through his work, the artist also chose to show the biodiversity surrounding the vineyards, and to reflect on its place in a region where wine producing is predominant. 

Exhibition
Théâtre les Halles, Sierre
21st January to 20th March 2022
Tuesday – Friday, 14:00 – 17:00 and on show nights

In partnership with NO PHOTO Festival in Geneva, Niels Ackermann presents his exhibition “Allo Huaraz” with pictures realised in Peru in the frame of SMArt programme

Niels Ackermann has been working on the situation of Huaraz, a city of 150,000 inhabitants in the Andes, which is facing a dangerous situation: the melting of a nearby glacier. His work shows the very direct relationship between climate change and people’s daily lives, as well as the difficulty of anticipating natural disasters and implementing concrete solutions to preserve lives.

In the frame of this exhibition and in partnership with the CIRM, an evening conference on natural hazards in the mountains will address the question of the impact of melting glaciers on the safety of the population and the management of these hazards in mountain regions with the help of Peruvian and Swiss examples.

This exchange of experiences will provide an opportunity to hear Eric Nanchen from the Foundation for the Sustainable Development of Mountain Regions, Javier Fluixa from the Centre for Research on the Alpine Environment, photographer Niels Ackermann, and Christophe Lambiel from the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mountain Research, who will talk about the Giétro debacle, a natural disaster which struck the Valais in 1818.

Exhibition

Hallo Huaraz – Niels Ackermann

25^th September  – 10^th October 2021

Place Wilsdorf, Genève

Conference

Natural hazards in mountains: crossed views Switzerland – Peru

Tuesday 5^th October 2021, 6pm-8pm

Club Alpin Hall, Avenue du Mail 40, Genève

More information: NO PHOTO Festival

The speed of light is a project by Argentine director Marco Canale, created in collaboration with the inhabitants of the Sierre and Val d’Anniviers region. The artist carried out several long-term residencies in Sierre in order to discover the particularities of this territory and to spend time with the participants, from different generations. Together, they talked about their origins and local traditions, their ties to the land and to animals, their memories and their daily lives.

From these encounters, Marco Canale wrote a story halfway between documentary and fiction, whose characters are embodied by the participants. Against the backdrop of the impressive landscapes of the Val d’Anniviers, The speed of light evokes the living conditions of the past and contemporary realities, while opening up a reflection on the possible future of the region.

To discover in Val d’Anniviers 13/14/20/21 August 2021.

More information and tickets on Far° website

In partnership with Alt +1000 Festival, in an outdoor exhibition along the Taillères Lake, SMArt presents some artworks of Juan Arias about the wolf. To discover from 29. August to 20. September 2021.

For its 6th edition, the photography festival Alt.+1000 invites you to an encounter with nature and its landscapes that irrigate the fullness of the soul. « Beautiful landscapes settle in the feelings » wrote Jean Giono. Many have discovered them as a revelation during the months of the pandemic that allowed only one leisure activity, the encounter with nature.

A source of life and enchantment, sometimes the cause of disasters and fright, nature was thus revealed, if not recalled, to the conscience of mankind. In three locations, the festival proposes to continue this encounter with artists who present their interpretation of nature.

Since the 17th century, glaciers have interested scientists with their complexity, and attracted artists with their majesty and apparent eternity. They are an integral part of Switzerland’s tourist and ideological identity. Sources of water and life, landscape sculptors, but also figures of global warming, these frozen masses are as much evoked and represented for their sublime – even mystical – aspect as for their fragility and their threatened future. The ambivalence of the ice attracts and intrigues.

In partnership with the Musikdorf Ernen Festival, SMArt presents a collective exhibition on the theme of the glaciers with photos from SMArt archives.

Exhibition to discover in the heart of the village of Ernen (Valais)

From 27 June to 12 September 2021
Every day from 10 am to 6 pm. On concert days until 8pm

OPENING

Saturday 26 June 2021 – 4pm

GUIDED TOURS

Saturday 17 July – 4pm

Friday 27 August – 5pm

In collaboration with the FDDM, a class from the Lycée Collège des Creusets (Sion, Valais) conducted a reflection on our relationship with nature linked with the current health crisis. This project, called Into the Nature, resulted in the creation of 4 podcasts entirely produced by 5th year philosophy students for their peers on the themes of: contact, loneliness, savage and health.

Listen here (in French)

Life has its own course. After a one-year postponement, the French-Moroccan photographer and architect Zineb Andress Arraki spends her artist residency from January to March 2021 in the mountain village of Bellwald. A confined winter. The artist takes advantage of this unusual situation to capture through her photographs the atmosphere of this mountain winter: the heavily snow-covered landscapes, the remoteness and silence of the village, the seclusion of inhabitants.

While her architectural photographs revolve around the concepts of « house » and « home », Arraki is inspired by painting in her photographs of nature and landscape. In the reflective snow that hides things underneath it and only gradually releases them, in this nature that slowly comes to life, time runs its course almost without being noticed.

Varnishing
Saturday 22 May at 3pm, Village centre, Bellwald

Visiting hours are free. This is an open-air exhibition through the village of Bellwald.

EXTENSION OF THE EXHIBITION UNTIL 22. AUGUST!

In residence in Bellwald for the past 3 months, Zineb Andress Arraki opens her workshop on March 20^th 2021. There, you will be able to discover the work she has produced since her arrival in Valais last January and exchange with her on her process.

With her background in architecture and photography, the Moroccan artist has laid eyes on the dissemblance and opposition occurring in the Conches Valley while this touristic area faces the current COVID situation. The deep snow and then arrival of spring gives her the opportunity to focus her camera on the absence and presence of Human being and of Nature in her different surroundings. Through her lenses, she questions therefore the place of Human being, between Nature and Society.

Residency open day, Bellwald

Saturday 20th March 2021, 15:00 – 18:00

During this event, please respect the sanitary rules still in force: wear a mask, and gather a maximum of 5 people indoors and 15 people outdoors.

From 29 to 30 January 2021, the Verbier Art Summit will celebrate its fifth anniversary, launching a new virtual platform and inviting leading artists and thinkers from all over the world to deepen the Resource Hungry discussion started at the 2020 Summit in Verbier, Switzerland.

The 2021 virtual Summit consists of a two-day free digital programme, welcoming all those with a love for art, innovation and ecology to participate. The Summit’s open programme can be explored over the course of the two Summit days at leisure, with three new talks and five international debates by new and former Summit speakers. This is a time of great change and the Summit gladly offers a central role for artists and innovative thinkers to enable transformation and inspire action on the ecological crisis.

The 2021 Summit speakers are invited by Jean-Paul Felley, the Summit’s Academic Director and director of the EDHEA (the Valais School of Art) including: Claudia Comte, Swiss artist, Tom Battin, Professor of Environmental Sciences at EPFL, Hedy Graber, head of the Cultural and Social Directorate at the Federation of Migros Cooperatives, Madeleine Schuppli, head of Visual Arts at the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. These interdisciplinary speakers will offer their different perspectives on a resource hungry epoch and reflect on how we can find a new way forward.

Sharing similar concerns, SMArt elaborated a cultural partnership with Verbier Art Summit particularly through the project of a previous SMArt resident, Sharon Castellanos. This Peruvian photographer will share her work about traditional picking of medicine plants in Valais in the Art inspiration section of the Summit.

More information or registration: verbierartsummit.org

Zineb Andress Arraki’s residency was planned in Spring 2020 in the small and typical mountain village of Bellwald. A certain virus having modified her plans, her arrival finally takes place in the snow and cold of the mountains of the Haut-Valais region from January to March 2021. A perfect season to get in touch with the issue of tourism and second homes, the theme this Moroccan woman chose to develop in SMArt programme. As a photographer and architect Zineb will indeed question the social and environmental impacts of the Swiss popular initiative accepted in 2012 about restrictions of building second homes.

After studying architecture in Paris (Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture), the Moroccan Zineb Andress Arraki set out to explore the world through dissemblance and opposition. Educated in photography and architecture, she creates a dialogue between light and shadow, industrial and organic, banal and extraordinary in her work. This contrasted work questions the place of Human being, between Nature and Society.

SMArt is partner of the Artothèeue of the Mediatheque Valais and and presents a selection of works by 4 SMArt artists in 2019. These photos can be borrowed for a while, like books. Another way of discovering the works of the artists in residence at SMArt. 2019 artists are as follows:
– Malika Sqalli, Morocco
– Tarek Haddad, Lebanon
– Juan Pablo Marin, Colombia
– Liz Tasa, Peru
Discover their SMArt 2019 works from the Artotheque in the photo gallery.

He spent a lot of time in nature, devoted to contemplation and the recording of his discoveries. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had a particularly sensitive way of approaching the realm of plants, thus inspiring many thinkers and researchers. In the diversity of living forms, he was looking for unity, a secret law. Thus was born the idea of the Urpflanze (the primordial plant), inherent in every flower, in every tree, but manifesting itself in a great variety of forms. This is the Goethean principle of metamorphosis: a breath, between expansion and contraction.

Here, the vision of the world offered by the German poet is precious, as it assumes a common origin to all life forms –which the human being is intimately part of. It encourages us to focus on the present in order to connect to a reality that transcends the limits of the individual. From this stems a profound feeling of oneness with the cosmos.

Through the prism of photography, Metamorphosis is an invitation to follow in the footsteps of Goethe.

Varnishing
1 October 2020, 18:00, World Nature Forum, Naters

Opening
2 October – 15 November 2020
Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 – 17:00

Due to the current resurgence in COVID-19 cases, this event has been cancelled until further notice. Further information on a possible rescheduling will be shared on this website.

Last spring, SMArt welcomed the Colombian photographer Stephanie Montes (1991) in residence at the Crochetan Theater. During her stay in Monthey, the photographer explored several themes inspired by the impavid nature. Her singular gaze has been set on our environment, to highlight the vital link that unites mankind and nature. Worrying and attractive at the same time, the universes she has immortalized instantly capture our gaze. Her landscapes, full of strangeness, emanate a feeling of solitude. At the same time, Stephanie Montes discovered moving family photographs from archives and photo albums from the Valais, which she chose for their emotional potential. Like emanations of presence, the family photographs associated with the desolate expanses thus participate in a subtle « encounter ».

Varnishing

16^th September 2020, 18:30, Crochetan Gallery, Monthey

Opening hours

16^th September to 11^th December 2020, Crochetan Theater, Monthey

Monday – Friday, 9:00-12:00, 14:00-18h: 00 and on show nights

Event

2^nd October 2020, 19:00, Conference and guided tour “When nature revolts: impacts and perspectives of global changes”.

The exhibition will also be shown in an open-air exhibition during the Festival Images Vevey, from 5^th to 27^th September 2020.

March 2020: The coronavirus paralyses Europe and large parts of the world. Borders are closed. Public life is drastically restricted. Those who can, stay at home. Within a few days, our lives have changed completely.

Many experience the shutdown as a phase of deceleration that allows us to rethink our own needs and lifestyle. What do I need to live a happy life? How much solidarity do I show towards others and what does nature mean to me?

An exhibition with photos from the archive of the SMArt programme.

Varnishing

27 June 2020, 15:00, Kaplaneihaus, Ernen

Aperitif will be offered by the municipality of Ernen

Opening

28 June – 13 September 2020

Daily 10:00 – 18:00

During her residency in Crochetan Theater in Monthey from March to May 2020, Stephanie Montes, 29 years old Colombian photographer, wants to dive into the past of the Valais people and their relationship with the glaciers through family album and various visual archives. Focusing on glaciers, their transformation due to climate change and its possible disappearance, she would like to understand the links between the intimate, the memory and the landscape of today’s mountains.

Graduated in visual art and graphic design, Stephanie Montes is interested in the impermanence of things, always looking to experiment with printing materials and surfaces that show her the passage of time. She usually works in a narrative way by building bodies of images that translate her experience of the world in a poetic and almost dreamlike way.

After her stay in Valle Verzasca – touristic area of the Italian part of Switzerland – last summer, Malika Sqalli presents her work, Weeds or flowers, at ESAV Marrakech.

Arriving with the intention of representing the valley’s relationship with tourism, she quickly felt oppressed by these « tourist spots » located close to the beaten track and easily accessible: overcrowded car parks and rocks, trendy riverside spots on the Instagram. Faithful to her initial idea, she nevertheless decides to launch her project: she captures the places most frequented by tourists. In his images, she decides to represent the visitors with bright colours that – according to the title of his project – can be seen according to the sensibility of the spectator, like flowers or weeds. Even if the artist leaves us this freedom of interpretation, what emerges is a vision that seeks to highlight an artificial and alien presence in the place.

To discover from 31 January 29 February 2020, ESAV, Marrakech

Varnishing

30 January 2019, 18:30, ESAV, Marrakech

During her three-month residency in Sierre, Peruvian photographer Liz Tasa freely pays tribute, through her work, to the abundant visions of Valais myths and legends. Liz Tasa’s photographic universe is based on a mixture of fear and fascination produced by the sovereignty of nature. Lenient, beautiful and generous, she can also be frightening. Earthquakes, avalanches, landslides, cyclones…. embody the omnipotence of the elements when they break out. Through her photographs, Liz Tasa invites us to a « walk » in the heart of haughty and imposing scenery, on the scale of which we measure our smallness and vulnerability. On the borderline between materiality and fantasy, dreams and nightmares, these visions that touch the realm of the impalpable highlight our archaic fears, our superstitions and our dark areas.

Varnishing and Tales & legends evening

Thursday 21 November – 18:00

In order to nourish and sublimate Liz Tasa’s work, a couple of Cuban-Swiss storytellers will come to breathe a mysterious atmosphere by telling legends of the mountain during the opening of the exhibition.

Opening hours

22 November – 8 December 2019

Mon-Fri 17:00 – 20:00

Sat-Sun 14:00 – 17:00

 Evening guided tour and sound performance

Saturday 30 November 2019 – 18:00

This evening invites to enter an enigmatic sound and visual universe through a guided stroll in the heart of Liz Tasa’s exhibition.

Alpine Refugees. Immigration at the core of Europe

This collection of essays highlights how given Alpine territories in Austria, Italy, and Switzerland are currently facing challenges imposed by migration, the barriers and limitations they are encountering, and the extent to which migration triggers policy and territorial innovations that can generate beneficial impacts for both migrants and local inhabitants.

The article on SMArt shows how an artistic project can positively influence the culture of welcome in a region and contribute to the integration of refugees, with two concrete examples : Lavonne Bosman, Light of hope and M’hammed Kilito, On est ensemble.

To be ordered from  Cambridge Scholars Publishing

From 24 to 26 October, the annual conference of CIPRA (International commission for the protection of the Alps), named this year “Cultural Laboratory Alps”, will take place in Altdorf, Uri. The theme of the culture will be questioned through what forces are being unleashed in the Alps, how they work and what framework conditions are needed so that cultural initiatives can make a contribution to sustainable development.

Taking advantage of this international event, a “flash exhibition” of Juan Pablo Marin’s work is organised during the conference. This year, the Colombian photographer was in residence for 3 month in Goeschenen, Uri, and focused his work on what he called “the fruit of the mountains”: the crystals. His artwork presents landscapes and portraits of crystalseekers viewed through the prism of a crystal.

More information: www.cipra.org

After his 3 months’ stay in the Swiss Alps (Goeschenen, Uri), Juan Pablo Marin presents his exhibition in Cali Colombia. The fruit of the mountains – as he likes to call the crystals that lie in the rocks of the mountains – inspired him for his artwork. With series of crystalseekers’ portraits and landscapes made through filter of crystals, he offers a glimpse of the people lifestyle in the mountains who love these precious stones and respect the nature.

His exhibition is to be discovered from 11 October to 11 November 2019 at Lugar a Dudas  in Cali, Colombia.

Varnishing

Thursday 18 October 2019, Calle 15 Norte, Barrio Granada, Cali, Colombia

Lebanon Mountains High Atlas 2017-2019 is a cooperation project between Dar al-Mussawir, Beirut, and Ecole Supérieure des Arts Visuels de Marrakech (ESAVM) within the SMArt programme. It aims at building new collaborations between international cultural partners and encouraged a respective “regards-croisés” on common issues between mountains areas in Lebanon and Morocco.

This project included an exchange of six young and emerging talents in photography and video to initiate a dynamic cultural exchange between Lebanon and Morocco and to allow opportunity for young artists in photography, film and multimedia from both countries to explore projects on mountain areas themes.

Through an open call in both countries, the photographers were selected and participated in two workshops and residencies, in Lebanon and Morocco:

From Lebanon: Ashraf Mtaweh, Hussam Hawwa and Ziad Hage

From Morocco: Abderrahmane Marzoug, Zahrine Kahlo and Ziad Naitaddi 

On 19th September, ESAV Marrakech will open the Moroccan exhibition.The opening event will include a talk with the participants and a wide audience is invited to participate, students as well as the local town residents.

On 3rd October, Dar al-Musswir will inaugurate the Lebanese exhibition.

Exhibition Morocco

Varnishing

19th September 2019, 19:30-21:30

Opening

19th September-9th November 2019

Exhibition Lebanon

Varnishing

3rd October 2019

“In camino”, the 2019 edition of Verzasca FOTO Festival focuses on the theme of walking. The Festival aims to act as a crossroads for all the paths we’ve walked on, are walking on and will walk on in the future. This edition is dedicated to people in movement and the festival will become a place of inter-action and integration where we can share our stories and discover those of others thanks to the participation of photographers from all around the world.

In the frame of the Festival, Moroccan photographer Malika Sqalli, who was in residency during three months in Sonogno in  Verzasca Valley will celebrate the opening of her exhibition on Friday 6^th September at 18:00.

The photography night on Saturday 7^th September will also be an opportunity to discover the artwork of Malika Sqalli as well as numerous other artists.

Varnishing

Friday 6^th September, 18:00, Sonogno, Tessin

Photography night

Saturday 7th September, 18:00, Sonogno, Tessin

Opening hours

Every day from 6 September to 5^th November 2019, Sonogno, Tessin

Social issues, such as racism, human right and social exclusion, are the basis of Peruvian photographer Liz Tasa’s work. Based on documentary photography, her engaged artwork is also full of sensitivity. Polyvalent, she works with digital camera as well as multimedia video or analog techniques. Her powerful style of pictures will invite people of Valais to reflect on their life in the mountains and the impact of climate change they are facing. For her three months’ residency, she still leaves herself the choice of the story she would like to tell: the Valais, considered as the water tower of Europe, running out of water? Or the violence of nature as a reaction to climate change through myths and legends? To be discovered in the next months!

During the PALP Festival, visit a photographic exhibition around the raclette cheese through a playful stroll in the village of Bruson. SMArt participates in this innovative event with the presentation of pictures from Bithal Remli. This Moroccan photographer realised a work on alpine agriculture when she was in residency in Valais in 2016. Her artwork, as well as works by contemporary artists and original archival images, can be discovered wandering through the old buildings, sneaking through the alleys, in a barn or at the back of a cheese cellar. Let’s celebrate Raclette cheese!

More information: PALP Festival

Opening
4 August – 29 September 2019
Open Thursday to Sunday

Varnishing
4 August, 11:00
Raclett’house, Bruson

Early 2019 Wenhuan Shao had the opportunity to explore the alpine landscape. He engaged with the majestic Swiss mountain ranges and trained his lens on Swiss natural landmarks such as the Matterhorn and the Aletsch Glacier. After a three months residency and a first exhibition with Crochetan Theatre in Monthey, he will now present his series THE SOFTEN THE GLOW at Three Shadows Photography Art Center.

Taking photographs is just one step in Shao Wenhuan’s creative process. By assembling numerous focal points into a complete image that seems to conform to perspective (reality), he hides hundreds of moments in one image, creating something like the spiritual depictions of grand landscapes in nineteenth-century Romantic painting. He intervenes in the images using multiple artistic methods in addition to collage. Paint strokes, cuts, tears, abrasions, and stains all appear in the works, forming rich layers of natural and man-made detail. He also leaves tranquil white spaces in the images and uses black ink to give the sculptural glaciers a deeper black. These “scars” that appear in the images or in nature seem to hint at the pain hiding within the landscape. In his ongoing series Galaxy Box, Shao constructed programmed lightboxes as rectangular spaces that frame images of the Alpine night sky in distant Switzerland. The twinkling lights from human presence pierce the silence of the mountains and rivers; landscapes constantly vanish and are reborn in the fragmented images that persist in our eyes. The points of light and specks of dust in the shadowy mountain forests or the vast starry sky are visual wonders outside of the “experience” that Shao Wenhuan has created, inspiring both anxiety and fascination. Set against the exhibition’s title, “The Soften, The Glow,” the scars of mechanical violence constitute a poetic satire, highlighting the direct and indirect damage to landscapes caused by changes to human life and the resulting acceleration in natural resource extraction.

Exhibition from 29 June to 28 July 2019.

Time: Tuesday-Sunday, 10:00-18:00

Location: Three Shadows Photography Art Centre

155A Caochangdi, Chaoyang District, Beijing

Maternal and cruel, elementary and unendingly complex – nature rules the world. Suddenly the human race arrives with its dreams, ambitions and all-consuming need for security. Humans subjugate their environment, model it and use fire, language, reasoning and pictures to invent and produce thousands of artefacts. They rely on nature for sustenance while exploiting it to excess, they also derive inspiration and seek refuge in nature. In other words, they consume.

Through his art, Tarek Haddad questions the seemingly tyrannical and one-sided relationship we cultivate with nature. Instead of the bleak and accusing paintings one might expect, the viewer is invited into a poetic internalised world of deceleration and contemplation.

Vernissage – 29 June – 3:00 p.m.

Exhibition from 30 June to 15 September 2019 – Bellwald village centre

“A heart and soul with nature” – 8 August – 1:00-5:00 p.m.

Spend an afternoon discovering Tarek Haddad’s photos, the area surrounding Bellwald and the smallest wonders of nature.

Programme:

2:00 and 4:00 p.m. : Tour of the exhibition with the curator Muriel Constantin-Pitteloud

1:00 and 3:30 p.m. : Waldbaden (meditation and yoga in the mountains) with Claudia Meichtry

1:00 to 5:00 p.m. : creative workshop for adults and children

Juan Pablo Marìn calls them the fruit of the mountains: the crystals that inspire him as a photographer among the steep cliffs of Göschenen in Uri’s raw uplands. It took these marvels millions of years of gestation, deep in the earth, before they were ready for explorers to find them.

Marìn’s portraits of crystal seekers, those who live on the mountain and in the mountain, who make their living from the mountain but above all who live with the mountain, tell of their passion and love for its stones, of their awe and respect for nature. Marìn’s pictures offer a glimpse of these people, and of their landscape, refracted through the crystals they search for. His is a condensation of the metaphorical, of the mighty poetry of time and decay, of the mountains’ effect on body and spirit.

And indeed, born in 1983 in Columbia and raised 1400 meters above sea level in the town of Armenia, surrounded by the Andes, Juan Pablo Marìn sees himself as a montañero, a man of the mountains.

An exhibition in partnership with Kanton Uri and Kunstdepot Göschenen Foundation

Place and dates

From 21^th June to 31^th August 2019

Old church Göschenen (Uri)
lower part of the village, turn left from Göscheneralpstrasse

Varnishing : 21^th June, 17:30

Opening hours :

Saturday-Sunday : 11:30 – 16:30

outside opening hours on request / contact: 076 371 09 26

Press review

The Moroccan photographer, Malika Sqalli, is issued from a mix cultural background, Austrian and Moroccan. Having lived in different countries since her childhood, she feels foreign and belonging to many places – and none – at the same time. This is why the themes of identity and culture inspire her in her artwork. During her stay in the Verzasca valley in Tessin, she will turn her gaze on the impacts of tourism on a place and she will wonder about the links between the culture and identity of the people living there and the mountains themselves. Thus, Malika Sqalli will not only be interested at the beautiful picture of the Verzasca valley that many tourists share on social networks but she will also scratch the varnish of appearances to apprehend another reality.

SMArt participates in the sixth session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) and presents “Agony of a glacier”. With this series of pictures from the Rhône Glacier, the artist Laurence Piaget-Dubuis tells the story of a surreal and desperate attempt to stop the melting of the glacier.

The GDPRR is a biennial multi-stakeholder forum established by the UN General Assembly to review progress, share knowledge and discuss the latest developments and trends in reducing disaster risk. 2019 session is taking place in Geneva, Switzerland from 13 to 17 May, convened and organized by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and hosted by the Government of Switzerland.

“It has been another year of devastating events which have claimed many precious lives and destroyed entire communities. Disasters are a constant reminder to us that whatever progress we have been making in reducing disaster risk, it is still not enough.
The Global Platform is an opportunity for us to come together to renew and accelerate our efforts to implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Achieving its targets for reducing disaster losses is a challenge and an opportunity to make the world a safer and more resilient place for future generations.”
Ms. Mami Mizutori Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction

The artwork produced by the Moroccan photographer Bithal Remli when she was in residency in Sierre in autumn 2016 are now shown at the co-working space The Work Hub in Vevey.

To discover until the end of summer!

The beginning of spring brings the bloom of a young growth in SMArt programme with the residency of Lebanese photographer Tarek Haddad in Bellwald.  His work is inspired and driven by a constant questioning of the emotional and relational human conducts. His projects concern on humanity’s engagement with the environment, in both spatial and cultural aspects.  During his 3 months’ stay, Tarek Haddad wants to work further on the human–nature relationship, and challenge his thinking process and approach towards it, particularly through the themes of climate change and water. The 28 years old photographer would mainly like to experiment the element water and its shifting states, between frozen and fluid. Without a doubt, the serenity of Bellwald’s surroundings will  blossom out his research on this theme.

After many weeks of observation of the mountain summits of Valais, Wenhuan Shao presents his perspective of the alpine landscape through his exhibition “The soften The glow”.  The Chinese photographer makes the choice to exhibit his work mainly on “light boxes” and big format photos. He also intervents on images with special techniques in order to give his work a pictorial dimension. On one hand, the oversized pictures permit to emphasise the impression of strength and power of the mountain. On the other hand, the voluntary interventions suggest the « fragility » of the world, such as global warming and natural disasters.  Through his artwork, Wenhuan Shao intends to create an emotional reaction and thus to transcend cultural and geographical representations of the mountain in order to create a common value of nature.

Varnishing

Thursday 18 April – 18:00 – La Fabrik, Rte de Clos-Donroux 1, 1870 Monthey

Opening hours

19 April – 5 May 2019

Thursday-Sunday 14:00 – 18:00

Event

Thursday 25 April 2019 – 19:00 – Lectures and guided tour “Perception of the alpine landscape over the centuries”

SMArt starts a refreshing adventure this spring in Switzerland. A new residency is created in Göschenen with Kunstdepot, our partner in the Canton of Uri. Juan Pablo Marin, a Colombian photographer, will be the first SMArt artist to benefit of this residency. In his artwork, he is interested in the relation of people with their customs, territory, and cultural transformations due to globalization and environmental impact.

During his stay, Juan Pablo Marin would like to make a project about the daily life of three people from Göschenen. The idea is to work with people dedicated to activities related to the mountain and the conservation of the environment, representing their close relationship with territory. As he is used to, Juan Pablo Marin will certainly implement an interactive project: participants  have an active role in the writing of texts, the selection of pictures, and taking photos.

As part of the Festival Histoire et Cité, which takes place from 27 to 31 March 2019 in Sion, Lausanne and Geneva, SMArt is launching the introduction of a collection in the art library of the Valais media library in Sion. SMArt donates 12 photographs to the media library’s art collection, which allows everyone to borrow an artwork and admire it at home during 3 months. This series will then be enriched with the artistic works of future SMArt artists.

The collection will be unveiled on March 30, 2019 at Les Arsenaux in Sion. On this occasion, a photo by Alejandro Leon Cannock, illustrating the theme of the Festival « Water source of life, source of death », will be commented at 11:45 and 16:15.

After her residency in Val Verzasca in Tessin, the Peruvian artist Camila Rodrigo presents her exhibition “Unsustainable topographies II” in Lima. Camila Rodrigo is moving away from the traditional representation of what we understand by landscape, and from this distance she reflects on man’s relationship with his environment and the « new landscape ». Through her photographs, video and installations made of stones and pictures, she wants to break with the stereotypes we have about the idea of landscape and natural space and show a landscape that is upset, attacked. This original exhibition is to discover at the Galeria El Ojo Ajeno in Lima from 12^th March.

Opening

12^th March – 6^th April 2019

Monday-Friday 9:00 – 21:00

Saturday 9:00 – 16:00

Varnishing

12th March, 19:30

Natural landscape, such as mountains and water, is a main theme in the artwork of the Chinese photographer Wenhuan Shao. Within SMArt programme, this artist and teacher at China Academy of Art intends to overpass the topic of global changes (climate change, consumption of ressources, etc.) to explore a deeper dimension of natural crisis. During his 3 month’s residency in Monthey, Wenhuan Shao will try to use landscape photography to transmit an emotional reaction to the spectators, in order to transcend cultural and geographical representations and create a common value of nature. For that, he will use special techniques that will permit him to bring changes to his photographs and figure them out as landscape paintings.

M’Hammed Kilito spent 3 months in residence in Sierre, Valais, where he worked on the theme of migration. He chose to highlight « through a reversed process, the relationship between Swiss and migrants: What happens when fear gives way to generosity, mutual aid and humanism? ». Through 3 series of photographs, M’hammed Kilito’s work emphasizes the great richness that different cultures represent when there is the possibility of cultivating and transmitting them. This exhibition is to discover in Marrakech from 31 January 2019.

Opening

31 January – 28 February 2019

Everyday 10:00-19:00, except on Sunday

Varnishing

31 January 2019, 19:00

In presence oft he artist and the Swiss ambassador in Morocco

Workhops with ESAV students

7-10 January 2019
Discussion „ We are together“ with Mehdi Alioua & Rachid Badouli 

31 January, 18:00-19:30

«  The stranger … and while I blossomed all alone, the world slumbered. »

In a series of poetic and sensitive photographs, Xiaoyi Chen highlighted the erratic boulders, mysterious witnesses of the glacial past of the Rhone Valley.

To be discovered at Three Shadows Photography Art Centre until 6th January  2019.

Tamir Bayarsaikhan returned to Mongolia a few months ago after his residency in Bellwald in the Valais Alps. Thanks to the collaboration of Arts Council of Mongolia. His series of photographs « Shadow on us » will be presented in Ulaanbaatar from 9 to 23 November 2018.

An opportunity to rediscover, the look of an artist who not only made a long geographical journey, but also a deep inner journey and proposes a very moving project mixing beauty and tragedy.

The SMArt (Sustainable Mountain Art) program questions us through photography on the challenges facing the mountains today.

Since 2014, the look of photographers from elsewhere, who have been invited in residence to Switzerland for three months, has been focused on our environment and our society, with gentleness or revolt, to magnify, document, challenge or simply highlight the links that unite people with each other and with nature.

This collective exhibition allows us to discover, or rediscover, the points of view of
Juan Arias- Colombia
Tamir Bayarsaikhan – Mongolia
Lavonne Bosman – South Africa
Sharon Castellanos – Peru
Jorge Panchoaga – Colombia
Btihal Remli – Morocco
Jiehao Su – China
Lanqing Zhu, China.

An exhibition in partnership with the City of Sion.

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Exhibition in La Grenette – Gallery of the City of Sion, Rue du Grand-Pont 24
From November 10 to December 23, 2018

Opening: Saturday, November 10, 6:00 pm
Guided tour: Saturday, November 10 at 8:00 p.m. on the occasion of La nuit des musées

Open: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 3pm to 6.30pm
Additional opening on Friday from 10am to 12pm

Lavonne Bosman tells her project on migration in the Swiss Alps in L’Alpe, the famous French magazine dedicated to the mountains.

Read the full article in L’Alpe 82 : Les Alpes vues d’ailleurs.

Thus far, Camila Rodrigo’s projects have focused on the transformation of the geographic landscape of Lima, mainly its cliffs and the abrupt changes in the tides of the ocean around them. During her stay in the Swiss Alps, the artist discovered other landscapes, in which the stones are also witnesses of profound changes.

« You can read the time from a stone. The territory’s constant changes, unceasing movements, erosion and wearing away are written in its layers…

A monumental, fiercely vibrating landscape, which reverberates strength. It prevails over the new necessities of its human inhabitants. It adapts itself, changes, persists…

Photographs realized with expired film and stone installations, reveal an altered territory that suggests the beginning of a new ecological era. Breaking an already settled imaginary to dig further beyond the first impressions, delving into the subtle tracks of a coexistence prone to be increasingly vulnerable.

If we place humanity inside the huge matrix of nature some certainties are undermined; new questionings emerge.

The echo resounds, urging us to take a step forwards and to penetrate… »

Camila Rodrigo

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Exhibition at Verzasca Foto Festival, 6th-9th September (exhibition until 28th October 2018)

Opening : Friday 7th September, 18:30, Sonogno paese

Meeting with the artist : Friday 7th September, 20:30, Sonogno, Grotto Efra

Two years ago Lavonne Bosman spent three months in the Grisons mountains in Switzerland. There she took a magnificent series of photographs of yesterday’s migrants, the Walsers who had settled in the region for several centuries, and refugees who had recently arrived from countries at war.

Lavonne Bosman will soon be presenting her work in South Africa at the GUS Gallery University Stellenbosch. This new exhibition will present photographs taken in Switzerland and a previous series on AmaXhosa people and their migration from Transkei, also known as Wild Coast, to the city townships.

With her very human and sensitive work Lavonne Bosman helps us realize that, in the end, we are all migrants.

From late June to early September Verzasca FOTO Festival will have the pleasure to welcome in residence the Peruvian artist Camila Rodrigo.

As a photographer Camila Rodrigo usually addresses the theme of territories in her home-city Lima. The three months residency in the Val Verzasca will provide her the change of environment and the discovery of a new culture necessary for a reflection and innovative artwork on a new geography.

In her artworks, Camila Rodrigo expresses visual situations related to the uses and abuses of man on nature, relying on sculpture, photography, Chemigrams and photocopy. Thus, her way of creation allows her to create new topographies.

Encountering new spaces in Switzerland will deepen her understanding of global warming from the point of view of a different territory facing specific challenges.

The photographer Tamir Bayarsaikhan is invited by the « Kunstverein Oberwallis » to a meeting and discussion evening.

A great opportunity to get to know Mongolia better, a country that often makes us dream and to discover the visual universe of the artist.

Tamir Bayarsaikhan will also tell his first impressions of Valais and the project he is developing as part of his residency in Bellwald.

The discussion will be moderated by the curator Muriel Constantin-Pitteloud.

17th May, 20:00, Zeughaus Kultur, Brig Glis

In the framework of his residency M’hammed Kilito dealt with the theme of migration in Valais, through the visual sociology approach that characterizes his work. He questioned the political and social realities of migrants by producing three photographic series that weave narrative threads: the first focuses on the objects and memories brought back by migrants as well as on their homes or places of work; the second presents exchanges of knowledge or shared knowledge between migrants and Swiss residents; the third tells the daily life of migrants through the activities organized by the Intercultural Space of Sierre.

Varnishing

Wednesday 23rd May – 18 :30– Maxxx Project Space, Av. Max Huber 12, Sierre

With musical participation of Spyros Panyiotakis

Opening

24th May – 10th June 2018

Monday-Friday 17:00 – 19:00

Saturday-Sunday 14:00-17:00

Event

24^th May – 19h00, Maxxx Project Space, Sierre

Guided visit and meeting with M’hammed Kilito accompanied by Benoit Antille, curator of the exhibition, and Didier Joris, coordinator of language courses at the Cantonal Asylum Office

Tamir Bayarsaikhan is a Mongolian photographer who tries to express delicate relationship between man and nature in his pictures. Real motion rythm, light, sync of various colours can be perceived in his photos in order to express realness; because he believes that art must be true. From his initial formation as a designer, Tamir Bayarsaikhan kept the rigor and sensitivity to aesthetics. But art of photography offers him the possibility to fix beauty of nature and share it with others. Travel is a major part of his life; he is able to open his world at every travel he makes. This will certainly help him to understand other cultures during his 3 months’ residency in Bellwald, as his wish is to work on the influence of climate change on migration issues in Switzerland within SMArt programme.

During his 3 months’ residency in Sierre, the Moroccan artist M’hammed Kilito will have the opportunity to work on migration issue in Valais. Having already studied  this question in his country, in particular with the publishing of the book « Un si long chemin » in collaboration with the UNHCR, this theme is not a discovery for this photographer. Issued from the tradition of visual sociology, he uses the image as a research tool to better understand a given social reality. Using his background in political science, he would like to explore – during his stay in Valais – the reason of national policy of restrictive immigration in Switzerland and the logic of the growing fear towards foreigners. His work will permit to highlight by reverse process (fear / restrictive policies) this relationship between Swiss and migrants. This socio-photographical research will certainly find its place for the Rencontres Orient-Occident 2018 in Sierre, in the frame of which his exhibition will be presented in May.

In February, the Theater of Crochetan in Monthey will have the pleasure to welcome Xiaoyi Chen, a young and to the promising career Chinese photographer, for a three months’ residency. Ambitious, she already had the occasion to distinct herself with her abstract artwork in numerous collective and individual exhibitions around the world. Thanks to a combination of techniques (photography, printing, video,…) she explores beneath the surface of things by simplifying the content of her pictures to the maximum in order to make our intuition react. Within SMArt programme, she is interested in exploring the theme of climate change and the issue of temperature and the perception people have of it.

A few months before starting his residency in Valais, as part of the SMART program, the Colombian photographer Juan Arias had spotted on the Internet an article of the local newspaper “Le Nouvelliste” which held all his attention: “A wolf killed in the Val d’Anniviers, victim of a poaching act.” Working on the representation systems and archetypes that underlie social relations, with a particular interest in the forms of violence that are played at this level, Juan Arias immediately understood, instinctively, the significance of this incident. After dealing with topics such as the myth of the « pink dolphin » in Colombia, he decided to focus his attention on that of the wolf in Valais, in a dive that would lead him to discover the tenacious and ferocious tensions that still divide today this canton.

In his exhibition, Juan Arias creates an extremely ambitious project which consists in proposing a « radiography » of the contemporary Valaisan society, revealing his fears, his antagonisms, his preoccupations, through an anthropological glance taking the wolf like red thread. His photographs work as a set, a kaleidoscope of images and projections that interact with each other, in order to create a plurality of meanings and interpretations: a Rorschach test of a new order, bringing out our intimate wolf from his lair.

Varnishing

21^st  November 2017, 18:00, MAXXX Project Space, Sierre

Opening

22^th November – 10^th December 2017

Monday-Friday 17:00-19:00

Saturday-Sunday 14:00-17:00

Evening « «The wolf in the scientific discourse and the contemporary imagination»

Wednesday 29^th November 2017, 19:00, MAXXX Project Space, Sierre​

Evening « The return of the wolf  in Valais: situation and challenges »

Tuesday 5^th December 2017, 19:00, La Sacoche, Sierre

The Moroccan photographer Bithal Remli, who was in residency last year in Sierre, presents her new exhibition in Marrakech called “From then till now”. This exhibition presents the two series « The Heroes of the Mountain » and « Country of Woman » to create an amazing course: two similar and radically different worlds. After her work on Swiss alpine agriculture in Valais – where she was confronted with a different reality from that she imagined – she returned to her native country in the Moroccan mountains to work on the strong importance of the work of women in traditional farming. This exhibition is an opportunity to confront these photos, these two worlds, so different and so similar. Two times of an intelligent photographic work at work, where one can discover a socio-political reflection that surfaces in its images and how Btihal Remli transforms it into photographic matter.

Varnishing

12^th October 2017, 19h

Opening                    

13^th to 19^th November 2017

Monday to Saturday, 10h-19h

“There are some realities lying under the surface of what we observe. Truths that lift up out of the blue, as a sea monster which rises to the surface and then disappears. Entering this unknown world is a way to me to tempt these monsters to emerge, it’s like building a bridge these creatures can get through to what is real and familiar to us. This beautiful space, where imagination and reality meet, is where love, tears and happiness exist. This is the place. This is where we live.”

This text of Nick Cave reflects the message Jorge Panchoaga has wanted to pass through his pictures: “Whoever visit the Verzasca Valley is exposed to all what nature and human being recount us. The story depends on who guides us, on what we find along the path—to imagine the future changes, to remember the past scenarios, to create a mirror between our fears and calm. “ His pictures were shown during the Verzasca Foto Festival in Sonogno, Tessin from 31st August to 3rd September 2017.

During her exhibition « Symbiosis » in Lima, Sharon Castellanos presents 2 series of pictures representing the distance or the closeness we can have with nature. The black and white series gives the idea of the boarder that keeps us far from the mountains. The series on herbalists illustrates a tighter link with nature. Moreover, the pictures of the herbarium are presented as a « polyptic». So from the left side, people can see only the portraits and from the other side, only the plants with incorporated text, and with a frontal view the complete herbarium can be seen.

Sharon testimonies from the varnishing: “The answer of the visitors has been positive, there are a lot of people interested in the practice of the picking up the medicinal plants. There was even a visit by the director of the Museum of “Sacred, magic and medicinal plants in Cusco ». Last but not least, Alejandro Leòn Cannock, a former SMArt photographer, took part to the varnishing as well, sharing experiences with Sharon on their stay in Switzerland.

From September, Juan Arias will start his 3 months’ residency in Chateau Mercier in Sierre with the exploration of the wolf thematic. The coming back of this protected animal in the Valais mountains is not the taste of everyone. As an example, a wolf was found dead in the Val d’Anniviers in February, probably victim of an act of poaching. Moreover, several politicians made propositions these last years to restrict the legislation on their protection. The population will even be called to vote soon on this theme. Wolves are definitely a burning actuality in Valais!

Through his images, Juan Arias would like to show the importance of preserving and protecting wolves in nature. He also wants to link this highly cultural and symbolic animal with human migratory processes which have a lot in common with wolves migration. This original thematic will for sure interpolate the population in Valais on its link with this animal and the wild nature.

Jorge Panchoaga, an anthropologist and photographer from Colombia, is currently welcomed in SMArt programme.  Through his pictures, he develops works related to issues of identity, memory, language and the relation between the human being and its environment. During the last years, Jorge Panchoaga has been interested in the historical relationship that we have established with nature, specifically the relationship we have built with water.

As usual, Jorge will stay 3 months in Switzerland. But this time, in a brand new place: Tessin. Indeed, SMArt programme starts a new residency in the Italian part of Switzerland (Tessin) with Verzasca Foto, which organise every year a photo festival in the Val Verzasca, a valley in the Tessin mountains.  Jorge Panchoaga will thus profit from his residency to explore the theme of water and its links with the daily and historical life of the inhabitants of the valley.

More information here: http://www.verzascafoto.com/

Deeply touched by the narrow relationship between the inhabitants of Andes and nature, Sharon Castellanos explored the links which unite the inhabitants of Valais with their environment. During her stay in Bellwald, she discovered diverse forms of cohabitation – between distance and instrumentalization on one side, and closeness and communion on the other. The Peruvian photographer delivers a sensitive representation of these various symbioses – a representation which turns out to be a metaphor more than an objective reflection of the reality.

Varnishing

21th July 2017, 18:30, Alter Werkhof, Brig

Opening

22th July – 6th August 2017

Everday 15:00-19:00

Sharon Castellanos, Peruvian photographer, is used to the magnificence of the mountains as she comes from Cusco in the Andes. Being in residency in Bellwald, she will also be confronted to a similar high mountainous valley; a situation which will certainly help her to understand this Swiss mountain region through daily rural life and the manifestation of the nature, her main themes of interest.

Within SMArt programme, she would like to point out important issues like melting of the glacier or Swiss people’s vision of the world, transfiguring the real facts into imagination. Indeed, she is willing to play with reality, alternating literal meaning of an image with the sense a picture can symbolize. With her work, Sharon Castellanos could offer a surprising illustration of the Valais between reality and fantasy…

Hasan Shaaban, who was housed at the Théâtre du Crochetan for three months, focused his work on water and energy themes, with special emphasis on dams and production plants. Overcoming the difficulty of accessing the dams during the winter season, this 30-year-old Lebanese photographer visited Grande Dixence and Emosson. He was also able to enter the lair of the factories of Lavey, Bieudron and St-Leonard. Photoreporter in his country, great importance is given to the action in his work. The latter is perfectly illustrated in his photographs by the gestures of the workers busy with the maintenance of these enormous machines. Hasan Shaaban makes « The Power of Water » feel through these photos, but never reveals it…

Varnishing

27^th April 2017, 19:00, La Grange à Vanay, Monthey

Opening

28^th April – 7^th May 2017

Monday-Friday 16:00-19:00

Saturday-Sunday 14:00-19:00

“Fascinating mountains, stolen summits” is a cultural event organized as part of the 75th anniversary of the development company Edelweiss from Chalais. Its ambition is to weave, in an exploratory way, links between the visual arts and the theater. In particular, it will bring to light the stakes in landscape design, whether desired or imposed, from a tourist perspective. Laurence Piaget, a Swiss photographer, and Jiehao Su, a Chinese artist, exhibit their work with local artists.

To discover from 23rd March – 1st April in Kabaret, Chalais

More information here

Varnishing

Thursday 23rd March 19:30

Opening

24-25 March 17:00 – 21:00
26 March 15:00 – 19:00
31 March 17:00 – 21:00
1 April 11:00 – 15:00

The first artist arriving in Switzerland in 2017 in SMArt programme is Hasan Shaaban, a Lebanese photojournalist. He defines himself as an activist, who uses his photojournalism career to show the truth. With his action pictures, he sheds light on all issues related to environment, especially the garbage crisis in Lebanon that lasts for almost two years now. When Hasan Shaaban reported pictures of the garbage polluting the natural underground water reserves, he had the idea of showing how other countries are trying to benefit from water for uses such as renewable energy. During his 3 months residency in Monthey, he wants to work on this theme in order to present constructive solutions to water management which could be useful in Lebanon where there are great water resources available.

During two months, part of the exhibition of Jiehao Su « The book of images » is shown in the lobby of the theater of Valère in Sion. This small exhibition is a wink to the work of Jiehao Su, as he realized some pictures in this place (picture of the seats for example) last year.

To discover during the shows at the theater. More information here.

Before starting her residence, Btihal Remli wanted to work on food production; she was particularly interested in cheese making and the effects of globalization and climate change on this traditional economy. The Moroccan photographer imagined to document the remains of a vernacular activity in the Alps. But once there, she was confronted with a different reality, far from the idealized images portrayed in marketing and tourism. This tension between a vernacular that became a brand and the contemporaneity of life and production patterns in the mountain is the central theme of her work.

Coming in Valais to work there on the alpine economy, Btihal Remli was exposed to a difficult challenge: to be able to capture in a short time some aspects of a complex reality, charged of sometimes conflicting representations that were accumulated through the ages. In the end, she delivers a sensitive and subtle work, which highlights the new dynamics at play in the mountains, between tradition and modernity.

Varnishing

2^nd November 2016, 17:30, MAXXX Project Space, Sierre

Guided visit and meeting with the artist

11^th November 2016, 18:00

Opening

Monday-Friday 17:00-19:00

Saturday-Sunday 14:00-17:00

Exhibition “Glacier of the refugees”

Breathtaking vision which collide: A « somewher else »devastated by a cataclysm, a refugee camp strewn with torn white tents sheltering imaginary survivors, agricultural covers that downwind turn into articulated ghosts, packaged gigantic artistic work sheets united by Christo, or a laminated dead wrapped in shrouds clear. “Glacier of the refugees” is an exhibition part of the project “Agony of a glacier” which is an ongoing photographic project on the Rhone glacier to Gletsch in the Canton of Valais in Switzerland.

Laurence Piaget presents her exhibition at the Festival of images “Shoot!” in the Chamonix-Mont-Blanc Valley. To see from 8^th  October to ^2nd November at the Maison de Village in Argentière.

Varnishing

8th October, 12:30, Maison de Village, Argentière

Opening

From 9th to 15th October: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday 09 :30-12 :00, 14 :00-18 :00

From 18^th to 21^st October: from Tuesday to Friday, 09:30-12:00

From 25^th October: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, 09:30-12:00, 14:00-18:00

Weekly closure of the Maison de Village: Sunday, Monday, Thursday

Exceptional closure: Saturday 22nd October

More information

Lavonne Bosman dedicated his project to the daily reality of village populations of Medergen and Litzirüti (Grisons) with, in historical backdrop, the migration of the Walser. In this context, she also studied how to build the relationship with migrants today through the specific case of the transit centre that opened in Litzirüti in 2015. Her exhibition will show the results of this exploration work.

Varnishing

Friday 7^th October 2016 at 19.00, Stadtgalerie Coire, Grisons

Opening

8^th-21^st October 2016

Wednesday-Thursday: 14:00-17:00

Friday: 14:00-18:00

Saturday: 14:00-16:00

Discover the work of Lavonne Bosman, the South African photographer, in residency in the Grisons, during the open doors’ day of AIR Villekulla in Medergen  on the 17th September.

The varnishing of the exhibition will take place on Friday 7th October 2016, 19:00 in the Town Gallery in Chur.

Half way between art and scientific exploration, MATZA confronts for the second times artists and researchers in order to explore and reflect upon issues connecting land, the collective use of natural resources and democracy. After three weeks in Mojave desert (MATZA Amboy) and an exhibition launched the 5th July in the US, the first edition of MATZA Aletsch starts in September on Aletsch glacier. A varnishing at the Konkoria hut is planned on the 17th September 2016, at 2850 m. high! This will be the opportunity to discover the work of Laurence Piaget and other artists who will stay for 2 weeks’ residency in the hut. More information here

From the 4th September to 22nd October, discover at the Theater of the Crochetan in Monthey, the exhibition of the two Chinese artists who were each in residency for 3 months with SMArt, in spring 2016. Jiehao Su, who stayed in Bellwald, was inspired from the poet Maria Rilke, who touches him deeply, and used this to explore and touch with delicacy the invisible soul of the place with his camera. Lanqing Zhu, who stayed in Monthey, makes us discover the “Melancholic Mountains”, with delicacy and elegance.

More information on the exhibition

Btihal Remli is a young woman who grew up in Germany to Moroccan parents, building up her identity between Oriental and Occidental cultures. This duality emerges from her photographs of Mosques, veiled women and people praying, since she is interested in spaces, especially more in immaterial spaces than physical ones. During her residency in Sierre (from August to October), her “double cultural gaze” will help to confront us on our vision of the challenge of the food supply in the mountains of Valais. Indeed, in SMArt program, she wishes to engage a reflection on the contrast between the difficult reality of small producers of the Swiss mountains and the idealistic image that is used to sell typical products like cheese by the big companies.

The Chinese photographers who have been welcomed in Switzerland in the last months are showing their artworks at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing until 13^th August 2016.

Both Lanqing Zhu and Jiehao Su have taken the opportunity of this new exhibition to enrich the story they are telling us about the Alps.

Lanqing Zhu shows collected lost post cards sold at flea markets, booklets depicturing explorers and alpinists, complicated and information rich maps. She mixes them with her own photography works to create a non-linear voyage in the time. This journey to the mountains and their peaks starts with an old Alps postcard, it is guided by old maps and people holding telescopes, while cable cars and ski boards are our transport. The artist travels throughout past and present, imagination and reality, but not satisfied enough of being a guided one or a tourist, she modifies and creates her own path to the tops, proving yet again mountains are natural subjects of humans’endless imagination and desire of conquer.

Jiehao Su completes his book of images, inspired by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, with a video about birds, a sound recording in a closed space as well as several email letters combined with images. These letters are genuine correspondences between him Sarah at SMArt and, with their linearity in time and their special form consisting of dialogues; they build a new intertextual relationship among with Su’s creations and Rilke’s texts. With this, Jiehao Su completes his commemoration and response to the poet.

This summer, SMArt inaugurates a new residency in the Grisons. Indeed, our new cultural partner, Air Villekula, proposes an original residency, which takes place in a tiny traditional alpine house in the Grisons mountains. This is the place where Lavonne Bosman, a South African photographer, will spend 3 months (from August to October) and lay down her glance on the theme of migration. This is a central theme of reflexion in Lavonne’s work, as she realised two projects on amaXhosa people in the last years, called “Ilungile, it is good” and  “Madiba’s people”. In South Africa, these people had to live in squatter camps near cities for generations, when they lost their own land in the rural homelands in Eastern Cape. With her photographies on migration, Lavonne Bosman wants to increase awareness on these people to whom it miss a voice to talk about their situation.

Cultural appetizer

The exhibition « The melancholic mountain » of the Chinese photographer Lanqing Zhu can be discovered at a cultural appetizer reconciling art and lifestyle. The program for this public event, organized in collaboration with Monthey Tourism and Monthey’roir: a guided tour with the curator of the exhibition, Julia Hountou, followed by a tasting of local products and multicultural dishes.

Cultural appetizer – Guided tour and tasting of local products

Wednesday 1^st June 2016 – 18.00-20.00 – Château de Monthey

The Chinese artist Langing Zhu arrived in Switzerland in March and is welcomed in Monthey by the Crochetan Theatre. After a two months immersion in the Alps her very personal and sensitive artwork – Les montagnes mélancoliques – is to be discovered from 21th Mai to 3th June 2016.

Lanqing Zhu addresses the majestic nature with delicacy and reflection. Her vaporous pictures exhale a poetic atmosphere; mounts seem to float, untied from the ground, while the photographer plays on the visible and the invisible. Her atmospheres can sometimes remind the Chinese landscapes. Lanqing Zhu mixes her aesthetic search with social and environmental concerns through diverse mountain infrastructures (cable cars, electric poles, snow blowers) that generate debate.

Varnishing

Friday 20th May at 18.30, Château de Monthey (Rue du Château 7, salle d’exposition du 1er étage)

Opening hours

21th May – 3th June 2016

Monday to Saturday / 16.00-19.00

Wednesday 1st June / 18.00-20.00 : Guided visit with the curator and tasting of local products

Discover the valaisan „Book of images“of the Chinese photographer Jiehao Su, who was welcomed by the association artbellwald.ch for a three-month stay, as part of SMArt programme. Jiehao Su’s documentary as well as artistic process keeps with the Chinese tradition. During his stay in Valais, he was looking for the most expressive designs, the most appropriate perspectives, and the right light to capture  the invisible soul of the region with his camera. Details from nature, everyday situations and symbols of the Valais history and culture form a kind of overall picture, which is able to show the spirit of the Valais.

Varnishing

Wednesday 18th May 2016 at 18.30, Galerie zur Schützenlaube, Ecke Schützenhausgasse-Stapfengasse, Visp

Opening hours

19th – 29th May 2016
Wednesday / Thursday/ Friday: 16.00 – 19.00
Saturday/ Sunday: 14.00 – 18.00

20th May - 18.30 - Tour of the exhibition with the artist and the curator with music of the Ensemble Tétraflûtes

Consisting of four valaisan musicians, the Ensemble Tétraflûtes developed a new musical program “Vibrations valaisannes”. It is a trilogy in which the archaic popular valaisan soundscape resonates with contemporary music. With the musicians Eliane Williner, Tanjia Muller, Rosalia Agadjanian, Eliane Locher. More information: www.tetraflutes.ch

14th May – 15.00-18.00 – Open Day of the association artbellwald.ch in Bellwald

Discover photographic works of Jiehao Su and meet the artist.

Launched in 2014 by the Foundation for sustainable development in mountain regions (FDDM), the SMArt programme (Sustainable Mountain Art) seeks to raise awareness of the challenges of the mountains through art and artists.
The original works of seven photographers-artists, welcomed in residency in Valais or from the region, were brought together for the first time at the Médiathèque Valais – Martigny this spring.
These looks linger over the mountains that surround us, reveal vulnerable territories, despite a first impression of strength. Photographic explorations are taking shape and, in different styles, tell the journey of water, the melting of glaciers, the still wild landscapes or pastures transformed into resorts.
The Médiathèque Valais-Martigny points these aesthetical approaches of short memories with artistic or documentary photos.
A multiplication of perspectives that lead us into sensitive terrain.

An exhibition to discover, or rediscover, in the premises of HES-SO Valais Wallis in Sierre (Rue de la Plaine 2), from 28th April to 10th September 2016.
Free access: Monday to Friday 8h00 – 19h00, Saturday 08h00-17h00.
Launched as part of the EnergyForum 28th April 2016 at 19H30
Finishing at the symposium “Château d’eau”, 9th and 10th September 2016

A cultural evening is proposed in the frame of the exhibition En terrain sensible:

Screening of the film « Les Liberterres » from P-J Vranken et J-C Lamy

Monday 4th April 2016 19:30, Médiathèque Martigny

This documentary film, presented by FDDM as sidelines of the Festival du Film Vert, follows the life of 4 farmers who have refused conventional agriculture and have chosen to practice alternative agricultural methods.

A guided visit of the exhibition En terrain sensible takes place at 18:00 before the film.

They could be brother and sister, or maybe fake twins, travelling to Switzerland to discover a new country and photograph the landscape. But far from being tourists, these two artists will certainly bring to SMArt an original and personal point of view on the mountain challenges in Valais. Indeed, SMArt is proud to welcome at the same time two young but talented Chinese artists from March to May 2016. Lanqing Zhu, a 25 years’ old young woman, will be welcomed at the residency of Le Crochetan in Monthey. She will certainly work on the link between people and mountains, probably by observing tourism culture in Valais. On his side, Jiehao Su, a 28 years’ old young man, will stay at the artist residency artbellwald.ch in Bellwald. He will focus his attention on exploring different dimensions of the mountainous areas: the fragile and the steady, the artificial and the natural, the conflictual and the harmonious.

The exhibition « En terrain sensible. Regards d’artistes sur la montagne” wants to sensitize visitors, through photography, to the challenges of sustainable development. Climate changes, in the heart of this questioning, cause resource shortages, a general water crisis, natural disasters and other irreversible environmental degradations. They are also the source of some conflict and population displacement.

This last point will be presented by Jeremie Guélat, PhD student at the University of Neuchâtel and specialist in migration issue, during a public conference.

Monday 7th March at the Médiathèque Valais Martigny.

18:00 Guided visit of the exhibition

19:30 Conference

More information here

For the first time, the works of seven artists photographers produced under SMArt programme are gathered at the Médiathèque Valais Martigny and take us « on sensitive land”. The artists in residence in Valais – or from the region – express, with their images, the major challenges of sustainable development. Their looks linger over the mountains that surround us and then reveal vulnerable areas, despite a first impression of strength. Photographic explorations are taking shape and, in different styles, tell the journey of water, the melting of glaciers, the still wild landscapes or pastures transformed into resorts. The Médiathèque Valais complete these aesthetic approaches with brief audiovisual memories, archive movies and old photographs, which remind us of the frozen lakes, the harvesting of rye, the seasonal migration or the song of a bisse.

Varnishing

Thursday 4th February 2016 at 18h, Médiathèque Valais Martigny

Opening

5th February – 24th April 2016
Every day 13h – 18h

Events

7th March – Conference about climatic migration with Jérémie Guélat More information

4th April – Movie night with the film « Les Liberterres » (France, 2015)

During the whole month of January 2016, MiratecArts presents the second edition of MONTANHA PICO FESTIVAL, the only event in Portugal of its kind. Mountain Pico Festival is not just a film festival and it is not just an art festival, it is also a celebration of everything that has to do with mountain culture and its issues, seen through the eyes of artists. SMArt participates to the festival with two exhibitions. Laurence Piaget “Agony of a Glacier” shows an exhibition at the Gare Marítima da Madalena, the entrance port to the island and the busiest place with daily boats arriving from neighbouring islands. Maralgua Badarch with her artwork “Mountain Myth” has her exhibition in the beautiful Pico Museum in the village of Lajes.

More on Montanha Pico Festival

Niels Ackermann, a Swiss photographer who visited Peru with SMArt programme in 2014 collected several successes with his talented pictures. In October 2015, at the international conference “Mountains of our future” in Perth, Scotland, Niels Ackerman won the prize “Mountain Stories” – with his photograph series ‘Waiting for the flood’. In December 2015, another picture “The guardian of Palcacocha” allowed him to get the first place of another photo competition at the Global Landscape Forum in Paris.
Two exhibitions also took place this autumn in Mongolia and in Switzerland. In November, Maralgua Badarch showed the exhibition “Mountain Myth” in the wonderful landscapes of Mongolia… outside, in the nature,  surrounded with trees and snow! “Agony of a glacier” – Laurence Piaget’s artwork on the Rhone Glacier – was then shown in 3 high schools in Switzerland, where students debated on climate change with classes from Niger or Uganda, in parallel of the exhibition.
SMArt programme makes connection all around the world on climate and water themes and show will go on!

Laurence Piaget presents his exhibition « Agony of a glacier » at the Swiss Embassy in Paris from November 19th 2015 to January 8th 2016. His photographs depict the Rhone glacier covered with tarps to slow its melting. These tarps stimulate the imaginary with different interpretations, where stunning visions collide: a landscape out of this world, devastated by a cataclysm, a refugee camp dotted with torn white tents sheltering imaginary survivors, agricultural covers reshaped into articulated ghosts by the withering wind, a gigantic work of art wrapped in sheets united by Christo, or even layers of death wrapped in clear shrouds

Varnishing

Wednesday 18th November 2015 at 19h, Swiss Embassy, Paris

Opening

19th November 2015 – 8th January 2016, Swiss Embassy, Paris
Mon-Fri 9h-12h

Climate changes, crossing glances of art and science

Beginning of December, the international conference on the climate COP21 will be held in Paris. The FDDM takes the opportunity of this particular moment in the climate agenda to organize an evening of reflection and exchanges with exciting speakers.
SMArt programme wants to raise awareness on the challenges of  mountains through art. But can art really be a stimulus for the community? Mathieu Menghini brings us some answers. Alejandro León Cannock shows us through his artwork the evolution of the glacier landscape under the pressure of a rapid climate change. Behind this creative and subjective work are scientific facts that reminds Martin Beniston. Switzerland is committed worldwide to ensure a future of quality for people living in mountain regions, Dominique Favre will show us how, concretely, art and science underlie this action.

Special evening

Thursday 10th December 2015, Sierre

Deterritorialization of the glacier landscape

The photographer and philosopher Alejandro León Cannock – welcomed in residency by the Foundation Château Mercier – explores a fundamental problem of the Swiss Alps: the melting of the glaciers. He offers an artwork consisting of photographs, collages and installations that «move» the components of the glacier landscape (stone, water, ice), expressing its physical destruction and its symbolic deconstruction process.

Varnishing

Thursday 3rd December 2015 at 17h30, Sierre, MAXXX Project Space

Opening

4th – 13th December 2015

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 17h – 19h
Saturday, Sunday 14h – 17h