Art+: three formats for transdisciplinary artistic collaboration

Ed Wige
Literature + anthropology

How can language articulate relationships between humans and non-humans? ‘Fragments de glace’ is based on an exchange of ideas and experiences between author Ed Wige and anthropologist Jean Chamel. Their transdisciplinary collaboration explored the manifold relationships between mountain inhabitants and glaciers through readings, interviews, observations and writing exercises. The support provided through Art+: exchange enabled Wige and Chamel to share their ideas and experiences about artistic and experimental approaches and processes.

‘The support provided us time and space to jointly reflect on our relationship with high altitude mountains. (…) I discovered more about Jean’s approach to gathering human experiences, which I found valuable because literature deals with tangible actions and stories. He also enabled me to immerse myself in a vocabulary and texts, which I found too hermetic at first. Through our exchange, his research articles have become poetic material for me.’ (Ed Wige, author)

Johannes Willi
Visual arts + bioeconomics + material sciences + mycology

The ‘Body Extravagant’ project explores the artistic, scientific and economic potential of fungi through transdisciplinary exchange. Since 2020, visual artist Johannes Willi has been collaborating with Mosas Pilscheur (mycrobez) and Florian Walder (Agroscope), two experts on natural foams and mycelial structures. Their transdisciplinary team has already carried out its first experiments with mycelial foam. The Art+: research grant will enable the artist and the experts to conduct in-depth research beyond disciplinary boundaries and to continue their collaboration in 2025. Among others, they will test different artistic approaches to sculpture using natural foams, hold regular meetings with specialists and visit relevant institutions to deepen their knowledge.

Proberaum Zukunft
Performing arts + politics

Proberaum Zukunft stages socio-politically relevant events, which could take place in the future (pre-enactments). For the project ‘Politique en Scène: Zukunft entscheiden.’, Proberaum Zukunft is teaming up with the think tank ‘foraus – Forum Aussenpolitik’. The collaboration involves developing a science-based future scenario. «Die Jahrtausendflut» will premiere at Bern City Hall on 23 April 2025. The production will be tested four times in 2025 with politicians, scientists and members of the public. The outcomes will enter practical politics as recommended action and political initiatives. Driving the project is the conviction that art, as an ‘as-if’, has the power to create new spaces for human thought and action. In 2024, Proberaum Zukunft received an Art+: production grant (new: Art+: transdisciplinary creative collaboration), which enabled pursuing the project at the intersection of art and politics.

‘Politique en Scène: Zukunft entscheiden’ is based on the fruitful exchange between artists and experts from non-artistic fields and brings together different kinds of knowledge and new perspectives: ‘We all think a bit differently. Experience teaches me that when we sit round a table, scientists are keen to convey their knowledge as accurately as possible in terms of their discipline or subject area. Politicians, on the other hand, argue in terms of feasibility, while theatre practitioners look for good stories, for a utopian spark. As a theatre practitioner, I see my role as asking the right questions, sorting out knowledge and perspectives, and distilling out the elements that establish the basis for bringing an accessible and gripping production to the stage.’ (Eneas N. Prawdzic, Proberaum Zukunft)

Monica Ursina Jäger
Visual arts + geobiology

Artist Monica Ursina Jäger and geobiologist Lena Bakker (ETH) have been working together as a transdisciplinary team since 2023. Their collaborative project investigates how new communities between mineral and microbial bodies come into existence in post-glacial landscapes in Switzerland and the Arctic. Looking at rocks, fossil forests, glaciers, rivers and microbes, the project explores whether life and non-life can be separated and raises fundamental questions about the vitality of Earth and its inhabitants.

Art+: exchange formed the basis of their collaboration and provided the framework for Jäger and Bakker’s transdisciplinary exchange of knowledge and methods from the fields of art and geobiology. They exchanged ideas on a regular basis, visited each other in their laboratory and studio, and made several glacier field trips in Switzerland.

‘Transdisciplinary projects are time-consuming and work best without having a specific goal or result in mind from the outset. Art+: exchange enabled us to get to know each other without any pressure.’ (Monica Ursina Jäger, visual artist)

Their initial exchanges have since developed into an in-depth research project (Art+: research grant). Among others, this has involved a research trip to Svalbard in the Arctic, as well as experiments with fossilised chlorophyll in Jäger’s studio and at Bakker’s ETH laboratory. The results include a large image and video archive, which will be incorporated into a multimedia installation.