Collaborations between artistic and non-artistic fields generate synergies, with the mindsets, methods and procedures of the various disciplines entering into a dialogue.
Pro Helvetia supports professional exchange between art practitioners and experts from non-artistic fields. This format offers artists the opportunity to regularly exchange ideas with experts from social or scientific sectors over a period of 3 to 12 months. The two parties exchange and learn from each other as part of an artistic process.
Discover three project examples of Art+ exchanges that we supported.
Diary from elsewhere: tra reale e finzione
Flavio Stroppini and Pietro Montorfani
Literature + social and historical sciences
From the intersection of the paths of a historian and a writer, the tandem achieves a benefit for both parties by gaining insight into one another’s methods for handling reality. The exchanges each revolve around specific examples of climate crisis narratives in different formats (a podcast, a film and a theatrical monologue) to explore the boundary between reality and fiction and the different approaches to the subject matter.
“What is reality and what is it not? How is it described? I go out of the house. I leave. When I am immersed in my travels, I do not write notes. It is forbidden. You cannot describe it while you are doing it. I am not a reporter, I tell stories. I gather material elsewhere and I have to resist the desire to pursue any story that comes into my head. Otherwise, I would look for the simplest path among that which appears in front of my eyes. I would adapt reality to my needs. That work comes afterwards, at home. The work is on the table.”
Flavio Stroppini
Live electronics, emotional interactions and creative strategies in collective free improvisation
Mad Song (experimental music collective) and Prof. Dr. Marie Louise Herzfeld- Schild
Music + musical sciences
The project explores how live electronics and emotional interaction shape musicians’ creative strategies in collective free improvisation. It brings together three members of the Swiss experimental music collective Mad Song and Prof. Dr. Marie Louise Herzfeld-Schild, a cultural historian of music and emotions at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw). The collaboration leads to output in both artistic and scientific fields and allows Mad Song members to further develop their international presence and collaborations.
Mad Song is an experimental music collective which explores innovative forms of music creation, combining performance with sound art, live electronics, poetry and mixed media.
- Benoît Gisler, electric guitar and live electronics
- Raphael Nick, drums and percussion
- Chanda VanderHart, prepared piano
- Luis Velasco-Pufleau, electric guitar and live electronics
Unfreezing the Landscape
Monica Ursina Jäger and Lena Bakker
Visual arts + earth sciences
This project is both an investigation into the altering natural environments and an exercise to explore transdisciplinary dialogue beyond established disciplinary frameworks. Artist Monica Ursina Jäger and geobiologist Lena Bakker (ETH Earth Sciences) create a transdisciplinary exchange to share knowledge and methods of art and geobiology. The basis from which they are embarking on a journey is their mutual interest in the interactions and feedbacks between living systems and their environment, the challenges of the climate revolution and the existential questions about the conditions in which life can evolve and survive.
“During our field work in subterranean and post-glacial landscapes, we develop a shared language of knowledge through geobiology and art. Both art and science must reach beyond established boundaries to tackle the current crisis in order to maintain hope for the planet.”
Monica Ursina Jäger (artist) and Lena Bakker (geobiologist)
About Art+
Under Art+, Pro Helvetia promotes artistic collaboration between artists and experts from social or scientific fields.
Funding opportunities for practitioners:
