Pro Helvetia supports the participation of Swiss cultural practitioners in a wide array of events, venues, and platforms in different countries. To reflect on the diversity of these activities, we’ve gathered examples of recent projects that took place in the regions covered by our liaison offices.
Arab Region
Algiers International Book Fair
WHERE
Algiers | Algeria
WHAT
SILA, Salon International du Livre d’Alger (Algiers International Book Fair), is considered one of the world’s largest book fairs. It provides space to present books to the public and promotes activities such as conferences and encounters.
WHO AND HOW
The 27th edition featured a collaboration between MRL (Geneva) and Éditions Barzakh (Algiers), showcasing the works of Swiss authors Noëlle Revaz and Nétonon Noël Ndjékéry.
Author Soufiane Hadjadj engaged in conversations with both writers. Noëlle Revaz explored the mirror-like relationships between Algeria and France, as well as between French-speaking Switzerland and France, highlighting the politically charged spaces these connections can create through linguistic and cultural dynamics.
Nétonon Noël Ndjékéry shared the journey behind his book ‘Il n’y a pas d’arc-en-ciel au paradis’ (2022), a work on servitude that took four decades to come to light.
Hadjadj also facilitated talks between Ndjékéry and Algerian author Salah Badis, focusing on the nuances of language in their respective writings, and between Revaz and Algerian poet Samira Negrouche, who engaged in a discussion on power and complexity in literary language.
Les Premières Chorégraphiques
WHERE
Tunis and Bizerte | Tunisia
WHAT
Launched in 2021, the performing arts festival Les Premières Chorégraphiques serves as a platform for emerging choreographers to debut their work and contributes to a dynamic and diverse dance landscape. It is organised by the Al Badil Association and its annual programme also features workshops and talks.
WHO AND HOW
Swiss dance company Linga participated in the festival’s 5th edition. Their performance ‘Flow’ was presented at Le 4ème Art Tunis and Théâtre Le Majestic in Bizerte.
Beyond their presence on stage, Compagnie Linga engaged with the local dance community by conducting a workshop with Tunisian dancers at IKAA Bab Saadoun.
‘Flow’—inspired by the synchronised movements of animal groups such as schools of sardines and flocks of birds—explores the mechanisms behind collective coordination. Choreographers Katarzyna Gdaniec and Marco Cantalupo delve into the interplay between the individual and the group, questioning the blurred boundaries between constructed behaviour and instinct.
Cairotronica Festival for Electronic and New Media
WHERE
Cairo | Egypt
WHAT
A biennial festival established in 2016, Cairotronica showcases emerging and established new media artists, while promoting exchanges and discussions among professionals in the field. It encompasses multidisciplinary projects in the intersection of art, science, and technology.
WHO AND HOW
The 4th edition featured the exhibition ‘Speculative Evolution’ by Swiss artist Marc Lee. The show offers a glimpse into a future ecosystem, 30 years from now, where AI and biotechnologies have shaped engineered species that thrive amidst global warming and mass extinction. Presented through an AI simulator, it allows for the audience to participate by creating variations of organisms and robots, immersing themselves in the dynamic intricacies of this artificial world.
However, ‘Speculative Evolution’ also critically examines the potential pitfalls of relying too heavily on technology as the sole solution to ecological crises. It highlights the risks of unintended consequences and encourages reflection on the values guiding our attempts to ‘fix’ nature.
Adding another layer of engagement, Marc Lee also led a three-day workshop at Medrar titled ‘Imagining a Future Where AI Balances Our Ecosystem’. The workshop explored the intersection of technology and nature, examining how artificial intelligence might contribute to ecological harmony. Participants gained practical skills in translating these concepts into digital form using AI, acquired web development knowledge, and learned to harness AI technologies to realise their creative visions.
East Asia
A Bunch of Noise
WHERE
Shanghai | China
WHAT
A Bunch of Noise is a low-budget, DIY experimental noise festival dedicated to breaking free from the art frameworks shaped by traffic and algorithms, refusing standardised or labeled art forms.
The festival is not just a space for sound experiments; it is a collision of emotions, an explosion of energy. Here, we seek pure sound experiences—not catering to market packaging, not relying on internet bubbles, only sound itself.
WHO AND HOW
A Bunch of Noise featured a distinguished cohort of Swiss practitioners such as Dave Phillips, Rudolf Eb.er, Daniel Maszkowicz, Luis, and Anton Ponomarev in April 2024. Their workshops and performances resonated deeply among the local audiences who shared a strong sentiment regarding the emancipating energy embedded in the gigs.
(Read more about the 2024 edition here)
(Read more about Interview with the organiser Mei Zhiyong here)
‘The audience in China is intuitively very open and curious about new forms of experimental music… We have taken many practical actions to continue the bond between Chinese and foreign artists, including collaborating on records, touring, and the joint development of technical devices.’
— Mei Zhiyong (organiser, A Bunch of Noise)
In April 2025, the festival presented Francisco Meirino, NVR, and G*park among musicians from 12 countries, and co-curated with Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival (LUFF) to jointly present a series of experimental film workshops.
A Bunch of Noise provided not just a stage for experimental musicians from diverse backgrounds to come together but also the opportunity for impromptu collaborations, inspiration exchanges, career networking, and communication with the audience at unique venues and spaces across Shanghai.
Post-Carbon
WHERE
Shenzhen, Beijing, Hangzhou | China (2024)
Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou | China (2025)
WHAT
As a long-term trans-disciplinary dialogue, expedition, and research project, Post-Carbon unveils the multifaceted nature of carbon through the collaborative exchanges among artists, designers, entrepreneurs, and scientists from both China and Switzerland.
By incorporating perspectives from ecology, material science, and product manufacturing, and by inviting the participation of social enterprises, non-profits, academic professionals, and sustainable brands, the project presents various pathways in the post-carbon process. The project integrates research with local issues through a series of thematic programmes.
The first edition, titled ‘Carbon as Energy, Life Substance and Currency’, took place in 2024 (learn more here); and the second, ‘The Political Economy of Sunlight and Heat’, is scheduled for 2025.
WHO AND HOW
Swiss artists and scholars at Post-Carbon 1.0:
- Anne-Laure Franchette, Artist
- Fragmentin, Artist Collective
- Janis Polar, Artist
- Knowbotiq, Artist Collective
- Marie Griesmar, Co-founder of the rrreefs project
- Maya Minder, Artist
- Ursula Biemann & Mo Diener, Video Artist
- Martina Huber, Founder and Curator for Awareness in Art
UP-ON International Live Art Festival
WHERE
Chengdu | China
WHAT
As a pioneering program of UP-ON Performance Art Archive since 2008, the festival adheres to four core principles: non-profit orientation, international perspective, academic rigor, and public engagement. Committed to advancing professional artistic practice and scholarly research, it has established itself as a premier platform for global exchange in the field of live art. Over 12 editions, the festival has hosted 268 artists.
UP-ON Performance Art Archive is a private, non-profit organisation, dedicated to collecting and preserving performance art materials with a global vision. Through curated programs including symposiums, workshops, publications, and festivals, it also builds a platform for communication and practice in the professional field.
WHO AND HOW
In 2023, Julie Monot and Katja Schenker gave performances and participated at forums at Guang Hui Art Museum (learn more here). They also conducted lectures at LUXELAKES·A4 Art Museum and Geely University School of Arts and Design.
During the festival, Julie Monot’s performance ‘Haunt’ took place in the Guang Hui Art Museum inside one of the magnificent rooms displaying immense pictorial works by Chinese masters such as Zhang Daqian. She intended to invoke five almost spectral figures who would inhabit the space like ghosts from another time.
In the performance ‘dress’, Katja Schenker appeared in a concrete dress that initially restricted her body as two rigid surfaces. The longer she moved in this dress, writhing, tapping her own body with bare hands and striding through the spaces, the more the appearance also evoked a sense of delicacy and softness. The net cast in concrete fell softly and undulated almost elegantly on the artist’s body.
In 2024, Phoebe-Lin Elnan was among 25 artists (13 from abroad) and 5 art critics who participated at LUXELAKES·A4 Art Museum on the occasion of the 12th UP-ON International Live Art Festival in Chengdu.
During the festival, she created new works at the A4 Art Museum, gave an academic lecture at the Southwest University for Nationalities, and conducted an artist talk at Nongyuan International Art District.
‘Echo Tours: Paris’, a guided walking ‘eco-tour’ was a 40-minute performance based on the premise that it is greener to fly one tour guide over to China than have a group of audience travel overseas. The artist took the artsy crowd on a brisk walk-through Chengdu’s European-inspired architecture that evoked the splendour of Paris.
For the 13th edition (2025), Joseph Baan will participate in the presentation, talk, and workshop.
South America
Festival Temporada Alta
WHERE
Lima | Peru
WHAT
The international performing arts festival gathers theatre and dance works, as well as workshops, panels, exhibitions, concerts, and film screenings. It works in network with the original Temporada Alta Festival in Girona (Spain) and its editions in Buenos Aires and Montevideo.
WHO AND HOW
Following the participation of Karin Elmore (Temporada Alta Lima’s artistic director) in Swiss Dance Days festival in 2024, the Peruvian event invited two Swiss-based artists for its 10th edition, that took place in February and March 2025.
Dancer and choreographer Ruth Childs presented her solo ‘Fantasia’, in which she investigates the body and its musicality. The artist explores her relationship with music ranging from Tchaikovsky to Dvorak, using her body as an abstract portrait of intimate and collective memories. The tools used by the dancer were also the theme of a workshop Childs conducted during the festival.
And choreographer Jeremy Nedd, alongside Impilo Mapantsula group, showed their second partnership, ‘How a falling star lit up the purple sky.’ The show seeks to rethink the archetypes presented in western movies through a visual poem and by combining different dance styles.
Dancers from Impilo Mapantsula also held a masterclass in the festival. Afterwards, the group continued their tour in Colombia, presenting their work in Bucaramanga and Bogotá, and conducted a workshop with kids in Medellín.
Intersections of the Future
WHERE
Buenos Aires | Argentina
WHAT
An event dedicated to knowledge exchange around art in the digital era, Intersections of the Future gathers exhibitions, workshops, live performances, and talks. It is organised by Artlab, a laboratory and cultural centre in Buenos Aires that explores new technologies to develop cultural projects (learn more about the centre in the Residency Guide of Pro Helvetia South America).
WHO AND HOW
The second edition, in February 2025, invited artists, producers, and researchers to dive deeper into the evolving dialogue between artificial intelligence and cultural production—with a special focus on topics around ecology and post-humanism.
Among the participants was Swiss artist Dominique Koch, who presented her video installation ‘Holobiont Society.’ Based on the concept of a holobiont (an ecological unit assembling a host and the many other species living in or around it), the work explores a set of issues related to hierarchies, power structures and concepts of coexistence.
The first edition of Intersections of the Future, in 2024, also counted on Swiss presence: Adrian Notz, curator at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) AI Centre, and Chris Salter, director of the Immersive Arts Space at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).
Festival Tsonami
WHERE
Valparaíso | Chile
WHAT
Held in Valparaiso since 2007, the sound art festival is currently focused on the development of site-specific processes and projects that explore the relationship between sound, urban space, and territory. The programme is made up of exhibitions in conventional and unconventional spaces, sound actions, concerts, radio broadcasts, workshops, seminars, and residencies—during which many works presented at the event are created. Since 2014, the festival has been extended to Santiago, Rengo, and Concepción. Furthermore, Tsonami runs a residency programme (more in the Residency Guide of Pro Helvetia South America).
WHO AND HOW
During its 18th edition, in January 2025, Tsonami counted on the presence of Swiss artist and researcher Marcus Maeder, whose work focuses on eco-acoustic research into areas, communities and organisms under the influence of climate change and other environmental problems.
In Valparaiso, Maeder conducted a workshop titled ‘Voces de la Quebrada: Transmisión Comunitaria Inter-especies’ (Voices of the Ravine: Interspecies Community Broadcasting). The idea was to create an environmental radio station, broadcasting from the forests surrounding Valparaiso, using the woods soundscape combined with radio contributions from local communities, artists, and scientists.
The artist also presented the talk ‘Escuchando la Tierra: Arte, Ciencia y Medioambiente – Dialogos Atmosfericos’ (Listening to the Earth: Art, Science, and the Environment – Atmospheric Dialogues) and the concert ‘Voices of the Forest’, in which he creates a dialogue between sounds from the Valdivian Forest, and human and non-human voices.
South Asia & Vietnam
Jazzmandu
WHERE
Kathmandu | Nepal
WHAT
The Kathmandu Jazz Festival, known as ‘Jazzmandu,’ is an annual jazz festival held in Kathmandu, Nepal. Established in 2002, the event features performances by local and international jazz artists and promotes music education in Nepal. Jazzmandu also organises band competitions, workshops, and masterclasses for local musicians.
WHO AND HOW
Sound engineer Antoine Quinet participated in 2022 in Jazzmandu. In 2023, Swiss musician Yumi Ito participated in the festival, and Quinet also participated again. In 2024, Erik Truffaz participated in ‘20 Years of Jazzmandu.’
Long Night of LiteratureS
WHERE
India (various cities)
WHAT
Evenings of literature where audiences get to meet several authors and hear their work in European languages as well as English. This meeting happens in a ‘speed-dating’ format, where audiences shuffle from one room to the other, at an interval of 15-20 minutes, culminating in a long night of literatures.
WHO AND HOW
The first edition of the Long Night of Literature was held in 2010, showcasing literatures in German and their translation in English. Over the years it came to incorporate other European languages and came to be known as the Long Night of LiteratureS. Previous editions have featured Dana Grigorcea, Max Lobe, and Katja Brunner among other writers. In 2024, Ralph Tharayil presented his work ‘Nimm die Alpen weg’ (‘Rolling Back the Mountains’) to audiences in Delhi, Kolkata and Varanasi. Author and poet Rolf Herrman is slated to be featured in the upcoming edition of Long Night of LiteratureS.
Chennai Photo Biennale (CPB)
WHERE
Chennai | India
WHAT
Launched in 2016, Chennai Photo Biennale (CPB) is a contemporary photography festival held in Chennai, India. It serves as a platform for showcasing both Indian and international photographers and lens-based artists, with exhibitions spread across galleries, public spaces, and heritage sites in the city. Alongside exhibitions, CPB also hosts workshops, talks, film screenings, and educational programs aimed at building a photography culture in India.
WHO AND HOW
The recent edition of CPB held in January 2025 featured a workshop by editorial designer Ann Griffin on ‘Approaching the Book’ alongside Indian photographer and publisher Anshika Varma. The workshop was aimed at photographers who have a regular artistic practice and are interested in learning about the book-making process. Previous editions have seen the participation of photographers Yann Gross and Nicolas Polli.
Southern, East, Central and West Africa
Kilele Summit
WHERE
Nairobi | Kenya
WHAT
Organised by Santori East Africa, a community- focussed music innovation hub, Kilele is a new five-day music tech and innovation summit for musicians, producers, DJs, technicians, activists and academics and anyone interested in the future of East African music. The programme includes showcases, panels, workshops, installations and performances.
WHO AND HOW
At the second edition of Kilele, which took place from 18 to 22 February 2025, Kenyan musician Samuel Karugu and Swiss musician Basile Huguenin-Virchaux were invited to present their collaborative work for the focus on Decolonising Instrument Design. Using open-source Pure Data software, their project rethinks digital instruments through the lens of East African traditional tunings beyond the standard Western 12-tone tempered scale, begun during Samuel’s 2023 research trip in Switzerland.
During a week-long residency in the Maker Lab, they collaborated with multidisciplinary artist and designer Astrid Bin to build an embaire (large wooden xylophone) using eight skateboard decks fitted with custom sensing networks. The signals were fed into a multichannel audio system, filtered and smoothed, and passed into a synth running the open-source software Pure Data to produce the sounds. During the presentation, Samuel and Astrid played the embaire using mallets made with skateboard wheels, while Basile controlled the pitch bend, sound design and tuning from his Pure Data implementation.
This continued Pro Helvetia’s partnership with Kilele, which begun during the inaugural edition in 2024 and the presentation of the collaborative project ‘Rolex’ by Ugandan synth maker and musician Brian Bamanya (Afrorack) and Swiss musician and artist Manuel Oberholzer (Feldermelder), also initiated during a research trip in Switzerland.
Spier Light Art
WHERE
Stellenbosch | South Africa
WHAT
Spier Light Art (SLA) is the leading light art festival in South Africa, held annually since 2018 on the historic Spier Wine Farm. Co-curated by Vaughn Sadie and Jay Pather, the festival is recognised for its curation and production of artworks by established and emerging artists, enabling them to exhibition large-scale light art installations that critically and imaginative respond to the lush landscape and colonial history of the farm.
WHO AND HOW
At the 2025 SLA festival that runs for a month in Stellenbosch between 21 March and 21 April, Swiss artists Sophie Guyot and Florian Bach each presented a light-based work. Their participation takes place within a residency framework inside the festival.
After presenting her existing work ‘The Meaning of Meaning’ last year, Sophie returned to the farm in March for a residency. She conducted a three-day workshop with a group of female farm workers, out of which she created the new text-based work ‘Everywhere’. The work explores the deep ties between humans and the land, highlighting the often invisible voices of farm workers.
For his part, Florian presented ‘HALID’, an existing work of monumental scale reminiscent of border surveillance strategies. Florian also began his research, which will continue next year when he returns for a residency. This will inform the creation of new work for the 2026 edition of the festival.
The Swiss artists’ participation in the festival through the embedded residency framework is informed by a research trip to Switzerland undertaken by co-curator Vaughn Sadie in 2023 to meet with Swiss artists.
