With the call for applications ‘Embedded Perspectives’ (2024), Pro Helvetia aims to support projects that seek innovative ways of thinking critically about art and culture and about their function in society. Designed to run for three years, ‘Embedded Perspectives’ is the third and final call for applications within the ‘Critical Reflection’ programme.
A total of 58 projects were submitted by artists and cultural practitioners. The expert jury selected 11 projects that stood out in terms of their multi-perspective approaches, quality, originality, participation and critical reflection.
The 11 supported projects:
‘Antenna’
MigrArt Collective
The project comprises a series of process-oriented and exploratory meetings aimed at identifying the needs and challenges of BIPoC artists and cultural practitioners, and at developing joint empowerment and support strategies. The resulting public exhibition actively seeks to engage with its audience and the wider public.
‘Ancrage: une nouvelle approche pour le jeune public’
Librairie La Dispersion
After a period of training and collective research that enabled the library’s team to rethink, deepen, diversify and extend its cultural education offerings for children and teenagers, a programme tailored to the needs of young audiences will be developed to continue La Dispersion’s efforts to promote inclusive and socially engaged literature.
‘Deci Delà – un cahier de côté’
Destination vingt-sept
The project involves a series of workshops run by artists and cultural educators for social institutions in Vevey aimed at fostering dialogue on art, culture and the place of the individual in society. A specially designed mobile device will enable the workshops to be held in the public domain, thus ensuring greater accessibility. Sessions and encounters will result in co-created works.
‘u n ~ t e a c h a b l e’
X COLLECTIVE X
Comprising a series of events and multimedia courses, the project explores archiving and arts education with a focus on marginalised voices, and enables under-represented artists to share their creative process and their art. The project also seeks to reinvent the transmission of knowledge and strengthen cultural archives in Switzerland and Europe by integrating new and inclusive perspectives.
‘STOKVEL’
Matri-Archi(tecture)
Envisioned as an audio repository of knowledge, the project aims to redefine relations in spatial practice collaborations, bringing together pluri-disciplinary spatial practitioners operating between various African and European cities. The project prompts a collective re-imagination of current ‘currencies’ and organises public panel discussions.
‘sali salam‘ — a programme focus on Arabic
sogar theater
Curated by sogar theater, the special programme is aimed at the migrant Arab community and developed in cooperation with community members and other theatre and literature experts. It focuses on cultural exchange, linguistic diversity and the collaborative development of a theatre programme.
‘Dance and community workshops with a focus on dancehall and twerk’
Tamara Alegre and Nimia Uloaku Gracious
The project comprises interdisciplinary artistic research formats which enable artists to explore the connections between past, present and future in the performing arts and to share their ideas, insights and experiences with interested members of the wider public. Each edition has a thematic focus and involves close collaboration with archives and/or museums and other cultural institutions in Switzerland.
‘Dust and other Rumours’
Johanna Hilari and Mirjam Hildbrand
The project comprises interdisciplinary artistic research formats which enable artists to explore the connections between past, present and future in the performing arts and to share their ideas, insights and experiences with interested members of the wider public. Each edition has a thematic focus and involves close collaboration with archives and/or museums and other cultural institutions in Switzerland.
‘Développement des chœurs cantonaux’
La Marmite
The project enables artists and former programme participants to engage in a collaborative creative process aimed at sharing impressions and experiences and at making their voices heard in public. Providing the choirs with networking opportunities will strengthen their sense of belonging to a common project, as well as foster dialogue beyond regional borders.
‘Programmation 2024’
Les Médusales
Comprising various new formats, including digital ones, the project aims to improve accessibility to the library and its events, which explore and question different literary genres, themes and relationships to literature. In this way, critical reflection on marginalised stories and the fostering of their wider circulation and accessibility is promoted.
‘DANKE– das Fan-Fiction-Magazin’
Marion Regenscheit and Lucien Haug
The literary magazine DANKE exclusively publishes fan fiction. Well-known texts, series, films or comics are given a literary twist. DANKE examines the relevance of fan fiction within contemporary literature and explores questions such as: How to write amid the literary heritage? The aim is to facilitate access to art and culture and to stimulate dialogue between the public and literature.
About ‘Critical Reflection’
In the context of the ‘Critical Reflection’ programme, we support projects that seek new forms of art outreach and education and strengthen the critical debate on culture and contemporary arts production. For this purpose, three calls for applications are launched in the 2022-2024 period, each with different focal points that build on one another.
