South America: Selected artists-in-residence 2025

Pro Helvetia South America

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We present the group participating next year in our Artist in Residency (AiR) Programme

Pro Helvetia’s annual open call for artist-in-residency plays a crucial role within our programme, thus emphasizing the importance of fostering collaborative networks and spaces for exchange.

This year, we received 278 applications from artists seeking to engage in the exchange between Switzerland and South America. The selection process, as always, posed a challenge in an effort to ensure diversity between disciplines and territories.

The selected artists will have the opportunity to spend up to three months in a different context, where Pro Helvetia, in collaboration with partner organisations, will provide them with workspace, professional guidance, and connections to local art scenes.

Artists from South America selected to residencies in Switzerland:

Ailín Grad

Argentina > Switzerland | Music

Ailín Grad

Sound artist Ailín dedicates part of her practice to writing material and recording musicians to work on electroacoustic and acousmatic compositions. For ‘Opening Captions’, her residency project, she proposes to create a music composition and performance with visual captions. In the process, the artist wants to work with instrument players from the local scene and study the functioning of a woodwind instrument that is important in Swiss folk music — Ailín has been studying woodwinds for some time. Also, for the closed captions, she wishes to investigate texts that have been prohibited or have some social and historical importance for the region. Finally, she will combine music and captions to explore the connection between sound and image and how we interpret those elements, how predominant visual representation is over sound and how we can invert this logic. The motivation behind this is to show the potency and specifics of aural perception, as well as the richness that can emerge from interpreting data through sound.

Performance and composition ‘strike/huelga/streik/lakko!’, by Ailín Grad, in collaboration with AGF and Constanza Castagnet to Ciclo RUIDO

Ailín Grad is a sound artist focused on experimental electronic music. As a composer, she works with instrumentalists and artists from other contemporary art disciplines, combining electroacoustic resources, concrete and synthesized sounds. Ailín’s works are a small system of gear pieces, geometries, instruments and designs in a diffuse and unexpected space. She tries to explore different materials and their textures, seeking to resignify some sounds that belong to our daily listening and to the soundscapes that surround us. She has released music under the pseudonym Aylu for several years independently before being approached by Orange Milk, Sun Ark, Mana Records and Other People, international labels specialising in contemporary music. She has performed internationally at Tate Modern (London), Fundación Telefónica (Lima), H0L0 (New York), Kraak Festival and KRAAK Ullakolla (Brussels) and in Buenos Aires at Museo Yrurtia, LIPM (Laboratorio de Investigación y producción musical), Centro Cultural General San Martín, La Usina del Arte, Centro Cultural Kirchner, Centro Cultural de la Ciencia, among others.

Caroline Ricca Lee

Brazil > Switzerland | Visual Arts

Caroline Ricca Lee

‘Homebodyterritory — An Imagined Motherland’ draws on Caroline’s ongoing research into ancestry as a form of fiction. Based on the idea that we can move bodies of territories but hardly the territories from such bodies, the project focuses on the household as an extension of an imagined motherland. The artist’s main goal is to investigate parallels between Brazilian and Swiss family homes, domestic contexts, and traditional practices, intertwining memories and collective narratives and revealing intricate bonds between memory, family, generation, identity, gender, and cultural heritage. Caroline wishes to explore the dialogue between Brazil and Switzerland (countries that have communities of diverse ethnic and cultural origins), the migration experience and the tapestry of a multicultural identity. Another interest of theirs is in ceramics (one of the media Caroline works with) and the material’s long tradition in Switzerland and Brazil as an artistic and utilitarian form of expression inside homes — during the residency, the artist intends to explore the region of Nyon and Valais due to their ceramic’s historicity. Both cultures also share a significant Asian influence in ceramic making, whether it’s the chinoiserie on Swiss porcelain or Japanese roots in Brazilian artefacts.

‘Ghost Members’ (detail), by Carolina Ricca Lee

Caroline Ricca Lee delves into archiving and memory from decolonial, queer, and feminist epistemologies. Through sculptures, installations, critical writing, performance, video, reclaim an ancestral body and narratives of Asian diasporas in Brazil. Lee particularly investigates an unofficial memory preserved in alternative documentation such as personal stories, inherited memorabilia, and family photographs. The syncretic gaze in their production reveals a repertoire in which Asian ancestry and Brazilian culture collide to create a noisy body of work inherent to the tapestry of a multicultural identity. The artist was awarded the ISOLA SICILIA Prize at Artissima Art Fair, Turim, 2023. They were also artist-in-residence at Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Waldberta, Munich, 2016; and Fondazione Oelle, Sicily, 2024. Selected exhibitions: terra abrecaminhos, Sesc Pompeia, São Paulo, 2023; National Contemporary Art Hall, Museum of Contemporary Art of Goiás, Goiânia, 2022; 31° Exhibition Program, Cultural Center of São Paulo, São Paulo, 2021.

Etcétera

Argentina > Switzerland | Performance

@Etcetera Achive

Working at the intersection of art, activism, and performances, collective Etcétera focuses on the violence produced by extractivism and its consequences on human and non-human life. For their futuristic science fiction project ‘Mars Strike’, they wish to continue a research that focuses on environmental futures. The idea is to create a futuristic science fiction grotesque work with a transdisciplinary language, in which human and non-human documentary stories, puppets, objects, and performers interact. The script will be based on interviews and first-person accounts of protectors of nature (peasants, indigenous people, environmental lawyers, and scientists), some of which would be conducted during their residency — for instance, scientists at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, at the University of Geneva, environmental lawyers and activists, and artists in the region.

Etcétera’s interview at ‘Anfíbios’ program in 2006

Etcétera is a multidisciplinary collective composed of visual artists and performers and formed in 1997 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since 2007, it has been led by co-founders Loreto Garín Guzmán (Chile) and Federico Zukerfeld (Argentina). In 2005, they were part of the founding of the International Errorist movement, an organisation that claims error as a philosophy of life. They often work with street-art, public interventions, actions, and performances that are necessarily contextual, ephemeral, and circumstantial. Their work has been recognised for denouncing human rights and environmental abuses through theatrical and poetic actions and statements often exercised at personal risk. In addition to their activity in the public space they have participated in numerous international exhibitions and biennials: Bienal Sur (2023/2019); Biennial de Performance de Buenos Aires (2016/2022); Jakarta Biennial (2015); São Paulo Biennial (2014); Athens Biennial (2013); dOCUMENTA 13 (2012); Istanbul Biennial (2009); Taipei Biennial (2008), Collective Creativity, Fridericianum Museum, Kassel (2005); Ex-Argentina, Ludwig Museum, Cologne, (2004), among others. In 2013 they won the International Award for Participatory Art in Bologna, Italy. They received the Prince Claus Award in the Netherlands, in 2015, and in 2023 they were recognised with the Platinum Konex award for visual arts (Argentina).

Ileana Ramírez Romero

Venezuela > Switzerland | Visual Arts

Ileana Ramírez © Julian Salinas, Atelier Mondial

Following a five-month curatorial residency in Basel in 2023, in which she was supported by Pro Helvetia and co-hosted by Atelier Mondial and Ausstellusngsraum Klingental, curator Ileana proposes to expand the connections she made with migrants working in the local cultural sphere. For her new project, ‘Let’s speak up! Leading conversations towards innovation, sustainability and care’, the curator will conduct a series of interviews with a group of migrant women, especially those from South America based in Switzerland, who hold leading positions in the Swiss art scene. The material will later be edited and published on Tráfico Visual, a cultural platform founded by Ileana in 2009, which gathers an oral archive of the contemporary art history. The project’s main goal is to identify aspects beyond the migration, and clearly open new horizon for a merging community that’s become more diverse and empathic with the diversity and the multiplicity of perspective towards the concept of culture.

‘Supuestos y presupuestos. The daring attempt to envision the future’, exhibition curated by Ileana Ramírez at Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel, 2023

Ileana Ramírez Romero is an independent researcher and curator based in Caracas, Venezuela. She is the director and founder of the cultural platform Tráfico Visual. Alongside her independent practice, Ileana is currently the director at Fundación Sala Mendoza in Caracas. With a law degree, she devotes particular attention to the social, critical, and aesthetic productions informed by memory, history, gender and identity aspects. Her research focuses mainly on collaborative art practices and experimental forms in the Latin American region. Most recently, she organized the international group exhibition ‘Supuestos y presupuestos’ at Ausstellunsgraum Klingental in Basel, Switzerland. She was an advisor member and contributor writer for the book ‘Latin American Artists: From 1785 to Now (2023)’, by Editors Phaidon. Ileana took part in Goethe’s program in Rio de Janeiro in 2022 and worked on a local project titled ‘Morar la frontera’ to encourage collaboration between the arts and the community. During the same year, she completed a two-month research residency at Melly Kunstituut, in Rotterdam, Netherlands. She worked as Program Director of the Cisneros Foundation in Caracas until June 2019. The same year, she was invited to the 45th National Salon of Artists of Colombia with the project ‘Crossing the line’. She worked as Program Director of the Cisneros Foundation in Caracas until June 2019, and has held educational projects and initiatives, such as support for the artistic residency program in Caracas and the series of talks Art in Context. In 2018, Ileana conceptualized and coordinated the 7th edition of the Fundación Cisneros International Seminar.

Javier González Pesce

Chile > Switzerland | Visual Arts

Javier González Pesce

An artist working with formats like sculpture and performances, Javier has always been interested in the work of scientists, especially from the 17th and 18th centuries, where research strongly linked speculation and sensibility with the observation of phenomena. For his residency ‘ALPINISM, Sensitive practices by replicating field research methods from 18th century in Switzerland’, he proposes to conduct a research process based on the ideas and methodologies of expeditionary scientists from the Geneva region of the 18th century, especially Charles Bonnet and Horrace-Bénédict de Saussure. The idea is to use their writings as a guide into explorations in natural settings. Then, Javier intends to generate a poetic link between the Alps and the Moon, specifically between Mount Jura in Switzerland and the Lunar Mount Jura, as well as the Horrace-Bénédict de Saussure Crater. The aim is to generate sensitive observations that consider aspects of a research linked to geology, biology, and naturalism in the alpinist tradition.

Javier González Pesce is an artist from Santiago de Chile, where he lives and works. He holds a degree in Fine Arts from ARCIS University (Chile, 2008) and a Master in Art in the Public Sphere from ÉDHÉA (Switzerland, 2017). His work has been exhibited individually in Chile, Peru, Switzerland, China and Canada, like the exhibitions ‘el ser tan bella no te da derecho a destruir’ (being so beautiful does not give you the right to destroy) at the Museum of Visual Arts (MAVI, Santiago 2014), ‘esta tierra es tal que para vivir en ella y perpetuarse no hay mejor’ (this land is such that there is none better for living on and perpetuating oneself) at the Gabriela Mistral Gallery (Santiago 2017), ‘Cielos’ (Heavens) at the Sion Art Museum (Switzerland 2017), ‘Satélites y errantes’ (Satellites and wanderers) at Points Center for Contemporary Art (China, 2019) or ‘Dos formas de desaparecer sin perder la forma física’ (Two ways to disappear without losing physical form) at The Darling Foundry (Canada 2019). He has participated in group exhibitions in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, United States, Costa Rica, England, Austria, Switzerland, England, Greece and China. He is co-director of the independent art space Local Arte Contemporáneo since 2011.

Lux Valladolid

Argentina > Switzerland | Visual Arts

Lux Valladolid

Mainly through audiovisual media and performance art, Lux has been uncovering insights into the duality of our physical and digital existence. For her project, ‘I asked an NPC to create art with me and this is what happened’, she will delve into the world of NPCs, non-playable characters from gaming. By immersing in a different context, the artist wishes to explore how cultural differences affect the way people interact with digital media (even though digital globalisation has homogenised many experiences) and, by extension, how NPCs are conceptualised and developed in video games and digital media. The idea is to uncover the nuances that define NPC creation, from their movement patterns to their modes of communication and how these elements reflect the cultural peculiarities of their environment. From that, she aims to produce a body of work that reflects the complexities of interaction between culture, technology, and creativity in the conception of NPCs, as well as establishing new connections with the local scene.

Lux Valladolid is an Argentine visual artist based in Buenos Aires. Her work and research address the human experience in relation to new technologies, focusing on internet trends and culture. Her recent projects explore the integration of physical and digital realms, creepypastas, and gaming concepts like NPC through performances, artificial intelligence, video and photography. She has exhibited her work in venues such as Decentraland, The Wrong Biennale, Mutek Argentina, Pabellón 4 Gallery, CPU Gallery, the Fine Arts Pavilion at the Catholic University of Argentina, and the Miami New Media Festival. She participated in the Artists Program at Torcuato Di Tella University in 2018 and was selected for the 16th Visual Arts Contest at the Argentine University of Enterprise. Lux holds a degree in Communication Sciences and also works as a digital content consultant. She is also the co-founder of the electronic and digital artists’ studio Piso 29.

Mauricio Ramirez

Colombia > Switzerland | Music

Mauricio Ramirez © Fanchon Bilbille

A musician active in the Colombian experimental-improvised music scene, Mauricio is interested in exploring solutions and alternatives for the drum set as a soloist instrument. In order to do so, he proposes, in his residency ‘RHYTHM TOPIA’, to create a solo work for extended drum set, focusing on rhythmic concepts found in Rafael Reina’s book ‘Applying Karnatic Rhythmical Techniques to Western Music’, the General Theory of Rhythm developed by Malcom Braff, and the concepts created by David Hildebrandt in his book ‘Polyrhythms’ combined with a technology called sensory percussion (developed by sunhou.se). Furthermore, he intends to collaborate, play and exchange with local musicians and cultural actors, not only to further delve into the Swiss context, but also to share the Colombian production.

Mauricio Ramirez Echeverri is a musician, drummer and composer who approaches in his instrumental practice different expressions linked to free improvisation, jazz and experimental tropical music. He actively participates in the Bogota creative music scene with projects such as Meridian Brothers, Hagudo and Pérez trío. He has shared the stage with musicians like Santiago Botero, Enrique Mendoza, María Angélica Valencia, Ricardo Gallo, Hólman Alvarez, Edson Velandia, Tony Malaby, Ingebrit Haker Flaten, Peter Brotzman, Tollef Ostvang, Andrew Drury, and Tim Dhal among others. In addition to his artistic activity, he teaches drums and ensembles at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá.

Nacha Vollenweider

Argentina > Switzerland | Comic & Graphic novel

Nacha Vollenweider © Anita Vollenweider

In the project ‘Divagues.Typo.Graficos’, comic artist Nacha focuses on graphic exploration between word and image, aiming beyond what is recognised as ‘comic’ in the traditional sense. The idea is to promote interdisciplinary research, establishing new feedback mechanisms and working on the crossings between pop culture, the visual synthesis of the muralist tradition, advertising graphics, the sequential rhythm of cinema and the expressive registers of contemporary drawing. In the residency, she intends to develop stories, in poster format, considering the contextual circumstances (social, cultural, economic), taking into account the communal history (oral, genealogical, etc.) of the place to think about the environment and compare perspectives. Nacha also wishes to connect with the local comic community, especially in Lucerne, home of the Fumetto Comic Festival.

Work by Nacha Vollenweider © Anita Vollenweider

Nacha Vollenweider holds a degree in Painting from the National University of Córdoba and a Master’s degree in Art, specialising in Illustration and Design, from the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg. In 2013, she received a scholarship for artists from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). In 2017, she published her graphic novel ‘Fußnoten’ (Avant-Verlag), ‘Notas al pie’ (Maten al Mensajero, 2018) and ‘notes de bas de page’ (Editions Ilatina, 2019). Nacha was a finalist in the German Graphic Novel competition of the Berthold Leibinger Foundation (2016 and 2020). Between 2020 and 2024, she published several short comics for the Swiss magazine Strapazin. In 2021, she exhibited in the group show ‘acciones, sistemas y afectos’ and ‘surfiando en Lava Cuna’ at the Museo Emilio Caraffa. In 2022, she exhibited at the Museo Emilio Caraffa the work ‘divagues.typo.gráficos’ and was selected that same year with her work ‘Islamiento’ at the Bienal Nacional de Dibujo del Museo Franklin Rawson de San Juan. That same year, the artist published the graphic novel ‘Zurück in die Heimat‘ (Avant verlag) and 2023 ‘Volver’ (Maten al Mensajero). Nacha was a resident at La Maison des Auteurs, France, and at the Literarisches Colloqium Berlin, Germany, to work on the graphic novel project ‘Las mujeres del ángel’. She currently works and lives in Río Cuarto, Argentina.

Pamela Clunes

Chile > Switzerland | Game Design

Pamela Clunes

For her project ‘Designing Games in Switzerland’, game designer Pamela proposes to execute a short pre-production phase for a game concept she has been working on, besides immersing herself in the Swiss game development scene. She aims to be a part of the Swiss Game Hub’s mentorship program, where she can get feedback and guidance throughout the process, besides sharing a workspace with other developers and mentees. During her time in Switzerland, Pamela wants to get to know local studios, work on collaborative projects, learning from their experience and culture, as well as participating in game development events, game jams, and other exciting activities.

Café Dahlia, game by Pamela Clunes

Pamela Clunes is a computer science engineer and founder of Raincup Games, Technical Game Designer and Gameplay Engineer. A fan of video games and technology from an early age, she officially entered the industry in 2018  as creative director of her own independent development studio. She is actively involved in the industry from an entrepreneurship, gender-focused volunteering and education point of view.

Pedro Marrero Fuenmayor

Venezuela > Switzerland | Visual Arts

Pedro Marrero © Leonor Sifontes

As an artist, writer, and disability activist, Pedro has spent more than a decade delving into disability rights, studies, arts and culture movement, as well as the Crip Theory, a set of critical perspectives and practices that question the hegemonic concept of normality. This approach seeks the bridging of humanism and queer studies through the repositioning of disabled and queer bodies outside of a subordination position. But only recently have these theories sought to incorporate themes of ecology and nature into the conversation. For his project ‘My electrical parts cannot touch water’, Pedro proposes to use a Crip perspective to deepen the idea of cyborg as the intersection of nature and technology by reflecting on how that identity marker relates to other markers like ‘crip’ and ´queer´. He wishes to focus on in-depth research, not only into the possibilities of an Eco-Crip theory but also exploring his own cyborg identity as understood by disability scholar Jillian Weise and in contrast to Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto — which makes disability invisible, ignoring the existence of what Weise calls ‘common cyborgs’ in favour of the spectacular cyborgs of science fiction.

Performance ‘Exorcizar Es un Verbo’ (2019), by Pedro Marrero Fuenmayor

Pedro Marrero Fuenmayor is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher, writer, disseminator and disability activist interested in issues of body and identity politics from the perspective of physical dissidence. He focuses creatively and in an investigative manner on the body and its cultural and contestatory implications, as manifested in the visual arts, literature, dance, performance and the intimate and political activism of people with disabilities. Among his references, Crip Theory plays an important role, with its invitation to bodily subversion from a political interrogation of normality. He graduated from the School of Arts of the Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Yhomara Muñoz

Argentina/Bolivia > Switzerland | Visual arts

Yhomara Muñoz © Jesica Henri

An artist of Bolivian origin based in Argentina, Yhomara developed an aesthetic that draws on the revaluation of her ancestral roots. She used techniques such as 3D modeling, augmented reality, virtual reality, sound, along with various materialities and techniques that preserve manual labour, inspired by sacred geometry, animism, and the worldview of diverse cultures, delving into futuristic indigenism. Her residency project ‘Healing Roots’ explores Swiss shamanism, connecting Helvetic traditions with the healing knowledge of Bolivian Kallawayas. Utilizing Switzerland’s botanical richness, she intends to craft objects encapsulating hypothetical cures for physical and spiritual ailments. The process would begin by researching and approaching healers and healing plants in the Valais region, collecting these medicinal plants, and subsequently creating the objects. For that, the artist wishes to experiment with the production of biomaterials and combine them with other manual and digital techniques.

‘Alfombra Unu’, by Yhomara Muñoz

Yhomara Muñoz is an architect and visual artist who creates futuristic landscapes and compositions incorporating elements of pre-Hispanic cultures and neo-Andean architecture. She uses 3D modelling techniques, augmented reality and virtual reality to create immersive experiences. She develops an aesthetic of her own character through geometric forms that she extracts from ancestral iconography. Her imagery is linked to the world of fantasy, dreams and magic, making one think about the future from the past. She has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions in countries such as Chile, Argentina, United States and England.

Artists from Switzerland selected to residencies in South America:

Eva Ruof

Switzerland > Brazil | Visual Arts

Eva Ruof

For a while now, architect Eva has been analysing physical gathering as a necessary tool for a functioning socio-political apparatus and, in this process, she has delved into the sheltered environment of institutionalised spaces, like the European Union. With her residency ‘BODIES IN ECSTATIC ACTION – new tools for instant city making’, she wants to continue and counterbalance this investigation. Therefore, she will focus on the non-institutional agents and their spatial practices mainly in São Paulo, Brazil, where a resistance scene has emerged. The movement Eva wants to examine is closely linked to an urban context, the neglected city centre, in which central social and cultural gathering spaces have diminished or been commercialised in favour of suburbanisation. She also would like to connect with local actors and the underground scene, which she sees as an important agent in offering new tools for active and instant city-making.

‘Stimulating Distortions’, by Eva Ruof

Eva Ruof lives in Zurich and works as an architect and teaching assistant for Architecture and Design at ETH Zurich. She studied architecture at TU Munich and PUC Rio de Janeiro before graduating in Zurich. In continuation of her diploma project, Eva has a particular interest in the need for and strength of physical encounters for taking social and political action. In collaboration with Lieselotte Düsterhus and as fellows of the Ernst Schindler Stiftung, Eva is currently researching on the contemporary spaces of political decision making, looking at the institutional spaces of the European Union in Brussels. Eva worked with performative explorations and spatial installations in different collaborations and through various media.

Janiv Oron

Switzerland > Chile | Music

Janiv Oron

‘Sustaining Echoes of Reality’ is a project that connects with Janiv’s recent work and sound installation, ‘VISITORS’, a piece dedicated to detecting voices of the ghosts hidden in radio static. During his residency, Janiv seeks to explore the concept of Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) and its connection to the history of technological artifacts. By utilizing the frequency range of a local radio, the project aims to create a sonic journey that challenges perceptions and explores the connective resonances of sound, in the intersection of technology and the paranormal. For this project, which Janiv intends to conduct in Valparaiso (home to Tsonami Arte Sonoro), instead of using the data from measurements to diagnose and predict the condition of infrastructure, he intends to turn people into sensors themselves, by creating a sound artwork as an immersive experience.

Janiv Oron is a media artist and DJ living and working in Basel. He is a member of the Goldfinger Brothers, performer, composer of experimental electronic music and active in different formations. He has received a master’s degree in Contemporary Arts Practice from Bern University of Arts. The artist fosters an independent artistic outlook set within a framework of collective and interdisciplinary working relationships. These experiments result in creations of audiovisual art, at home and abroad, at DJ battles, club nights, concerts, open-airs and parades, as well as catching him over the airwaves. Whizz-kid in a word, he launched several party series and had his own show on Swiss Radio SRF Virus to boot.

Léonie Rose Marion

Switzerland > Chile | Visual Arts

Leonie Rose Marion

Photographer Léonie has been investigating the disappearance of night — due to light pollution — by displaying light-sensitive paper in different places during the same amount of time. The results are monochromes in different shades of grey, created by the artificial light emanations on the outskirts of towns and villages. In her residency ‘Sensitive darkness’, she proposes to set off to the Atacama Desert (a major location for star-gazing and astronomical observation) with photosensitive paper to document the natural darkness and to fully experience the nocturnal landscape. The work would consist of a scientific counter-narrative, with photograms of the darkness and light pollution in this region, as well as ‘classic’ documentary images. Léonie aims, with this project, to extend her current investigation to a mythical astronomical observation site, but also to question the different perceptions of the cosmos and the night, whether scientific, cultural or personal. For this, she would also like to encounter locals to understand their own relationship with the night and document these talks with text and sound.

‘Relever la nuit’, by Léonie Rose Marion

Léonie Rose Marion is an artist living and working in Geneva. Her work focuses on different subjects related to territory, environmental matters and the photographic medium. The artist’s research on the materiality of photography is always rooted in a documentary practice of fieldwork, whether on the disappearance of glaciers with her work ‘Surfaces reliques’, made using out-of-date Polaroids, or in her latest project ‘Relever la nuit’, in which she attempts to measure light pollution through the use of photograms, in discussion with a researcher from the University of Geneva. Her work has been shown in various Swiss institutions, such as the Centre de la photographie Genève, Photo Elysée, the Centre d’Art Pasquart in Bienne and IPFO-Haus der Fotografie in Olten. In 2022, she received the City of Geneva’s grant for a documentary photographic project.

Lithic Alliance

Switzerland > Brazil | Visual Arts

Lithic Alliance

In ‘HEALING EXTRACTION’, Lithic Alliance wants to investigate in the interrelationships of extractivism, spiritualism and well-being and their effects within different communities. For that, a member of the collective will embark on a performative and sonic journey in Brazil to discover the vibrations and tensions that can arise between human and material bodies. They intend to investigate the connections between geological matter and socio-cultural, geopolitical and speculative aspects of ecological systems. Therefore, themes of animism, the rights of nature and queer relationships and kinship would be a relevant aspect of the research. The process would combine acoustic and theoretical investigation as to expand the understanding of what a voice can be, and thus to explore the perception and significance of a legal voice of nature. During the process, Lithic Alliance would like to join indigenous communities in thematising the vitality of nature and fundamentally questioning the Western naturalistic ontology that only ascribes a soul to humans.

‘Fossile Fantasien’, by Lithic Alliance

Lithic Alliance is a more-than-human collective predominantly working with the lithological realm and the energies and vibrations that emerge in this mineralised entanglement. Their research digs into the ecological and geopolitical foundation of co-existence, animisms and the rights of nature resulting in multifaceted projects that investigates connections spanning over vast temporalities to identify phenomenological correspondence and queer kinship. Lithic Alliance investigates vibrancy as a medium of interspecies communication and listening that goes beyond systematically traceable signals. Sound synthesis, movement and performances serve as tools to establish connections and circles of exchange with material others to collectively work on speculations of temporalities, deep time relationships and near future scenarios. Lithic Alliance exhibited and performed amongst others at ICA Londo, Stems Brussels, Kunsthalle Bern, Art Safiental Biennale, Haus Konstruktiv Zürich, A Domestic Art Fair ADAF, Saachi Gallery, P/////AKT Amsterdam, Jeanine Hofland, Couronne Bienne, Gasträume Zürich.

Magali Dougoud

Switzerland > Argentina | Visual Arts

Magali Dougoud © Alessandra Carosi

Within her practice, visual artist Magalis seeks to dismantle dominant historical and scientific narratives to find other possible subjectivities. ‘COALITIONES CON CUERPOS DE AGUA’, her residency project, looks at the waterways of Buenos Aires, highlighting their ecological and social importance and critiquing the policies of privatized water management. The idea is to combine research and interviews in a video work to address water scarcity, pollution and gender violence, with the aim of encouraging dialogue and action on water as a shared resource and site of collective memory. The endeavor would also involve dissecting the intricate links between water and feminism, viewing violence as a mechanism of extractivist, patriarchal, and colonialist control. During her stay, she intends to collaborate with artists, researchers, scientists, and local communities and movements, besides experimenting and filming outdoors and in the studio, using green screens and capturing footage in and around the city’s various waterways.

‘Le Continuum Bleu’, video still, by Magali Dougoud

Magali Dougoud is an artist living and working between Lausanne (Switzerland) and Paris (France). She graduated from HEAD-Geneva and HKB-Bern with a master’s degree in visual arts. Her work has been presented in various art spaces, museums and festivals, including the last Kiev Biennial, the Institut Français and Musée National in Kinshasa (Ruanda), the Museum of Modern Art in Chiloé (Chile), Avtonomia Akademi in Athens, the Los Cerillos Contemporary Art Center in Santiago, the Antre Peaux Art Center in Bourge (France), DOC! and Houloc in Paris, Berlin Art Week and Vierte Welt in Berlin, Kunst Forum Baloise Park and Klingental Ausstellungsraum in Basel, Manoir de la Ville de Martigny and Ganioz Project Space (Switzerland), Musée Cantonale des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, Centre PasquArt, lokal-int and Krone Couronne in Biel, Satdtgalerie in Bern and Zurich Art Weekend. She has taken part in various residencies at Casa Museo Alberto Baeriswyl in Puerto Yartou (Chile), at Air Berlin Alexanderplatz, in partnership with Pro Helvetia, at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris and at Kin ArtStudio, Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo) in partnership with Pro Helvetia. She has been awarded the Bourse des Arts Plastiques du Canton de Vaud in 2020, besides receiving several work grants from Pro Helvetia and the ArtPro Valais Grant in 2022.

ROSHÂNI

Switzerland > Colombia | Music

Inès Mouzoune and Roxane Dumont, from the duo ROSHÂNI © Loreat Bokalli

A music duo of alternative electronic dance, Roshâni draws inspirations from their backgrounds, ranging from Iran to Morocco through Bulgaria, while being influenced by Latin rhythms. For their residency, they propose to set off to Colombia to collaborate with local artists (mainly female, who are underrepresented in current electronic and rock music), perform in local venues, produce new work, and forge connections between their music and the local cultural scene. After a first stay in Bogotá, they intend to go to Barranquilla, in the Caribbean coast. This experience should help shape ROSHÂNI’s next EP release.

ROSHÂNI, meaning “light” in Farsi, is a musical duo that blends diverse musical genres, including tropical, psychedelic cumbia, rock, and oriental disco, sung in Spanish, Farsi, and French. Their fusion creates an alternative organic electronic dance sound, incorporating elements of afro-dancehall and tropical beats, with rhythms ranging from cumbia to reggaeton. ROSHÂNI is led by Roxane Dumont’s vocals and Inès Mouzoune’s synthesizers and deep bass, accompanied by Yavor Lilov on drums and production. Their debut single, ‘REINAS’, was released in March 2023.

Sarina Scheidegger

Switzerland > Chile | Visual Arts

Sarina Scheidegger © Karin Salathé

In her recent works, Sarina has combined ceramic props with the voices and movements of various performers, connecting them to liquid states, hydrofeminist thinking, collaborative forms of narratives and polyphonic atmospheres. Her residency project draws on this research about whistling water vessels in views of a new site-specific performance piece. To that end, she intends to set off to the Chilean Patagonia to work alongside this environment, close to the sea, the mountains, the forest and inhabited by a variety of animals, like birds and dolphins. The artist would work in-situ on some ceramic water whistles which could then be activated in the sea, creating some kind of concert, always with the premonition that they could go astray with and within the existing sounds.

‘Collaborating Waters’, by Sarina_Scheidegger, at the Museum Tinguely, Basel © Kambiz Shafei

Sarina Scheidegger is an artist and writer living and working in Basel, Switzerland. Collaboration is one of the fundamental aspects of her artistic research and she often works with other artists, performers and musicians in joint formats. Performance, printed matters and ceramics are regularly combined in her projects overlapping with other disciplines. Sarina holds a Master of Contemporary Art Practice from the HKB University of Arts Bern as well as a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Art Institute HGK FHNW in Basel, where she also worked as a research assistant. She has received numerous grants and residencies: Istituto Svizzero, Roma, (2023/2024), FLORA ars+natura, Bogota, (2018) and the Swiss Performance Award (2012). In 2016 she founded Stingray Editions together with Kambiz Shafei to publish different formats and editions by various artists.

STUDIO FUMO

Switzerland > Argentina | Visual Arts

STUDIO FUMO

To decode the lithium market, its revolution with the digital era and its relationship to e-waste, green washing and consumer behaviour, the duo STUDIO FUMO proposes a performative trip on a ‘li-scooter’ to the triangle of lithium, in the north of Argentina, where the mineral is widely extracted. The extensive mining also requires a great amount of water, which is already scarce in the region. For their project ‘#XenerationLi #Li-festyle’, the artists’ goal is to create a short video collage about the journey, resulting in a public video installation or screening, and a multifaceted merchandise set to promote the discussion. The creations would critically reflect on the digital nomad lifestyle and the exploitation of resources.

Market Bolivia, by STUDIO FUMO

STUDIO FUMO is a queer feminist collective working transdisciplinary and intersectional between art in public and public glitch. As artivists they explore social codes and the terrain vague of public space, constantly seeking new formats in art. Through the ether, informally, provocatively, and accidentally on purpose. They examine and reveal existing power structures. With a mixture of cultural hacking, interventions & happenings and video collage, they are continuously exploring new realms.

More on residencies

The call for our residency programme is open once a year, from January until 1 March.

Guide to Residencies in South America