Season’s Greetings
To our friends, collaborators, partners, alumni, visitors, guest and all interested parties:
We want all the war, sickness, and death that 2022 brought to come to an end. We wish all of you a safer, more peaceful and joyous 2023.
Warmly, Team ILEA
We look back on an eventful year:
The art summer was packed with the 4th Art Safiental Biennale on the theme “Learning from the Earth”, the 4th Alps Art Academy and the 3rd ILEA Talks, three established initiatives returned and new ones were established and expanded: In the ILEA Residency, thanks to a cooperation with Pro Helvetia (To-gather), we could welcome for the first time two long-term guests from India: Shazeb Shaikh and Dharmendra Prasad, whose Grass Museum many still remember from the Biennale. Both are returning to the ILEA Gallery in Alpenblick next year with the exhibition “Grass Stories” (opening 12/31/22).
The exhibition in the ILEA Gallery shown in the expiring year presented Marcus Maeder with his research project ACLA, which will be continued next year and extended to a 2nd forest area together with the partners from ZHdK, WSL and the forest service Safiental. The second ongoing research project “Safientaler Gespräche”, Oral History with Dominik Landwehr, will also continue next year, undergo an evaluation and an opening.
In spring, the reader “Learning from the Earth” is announced, which we were recently able to finance through a crowdfunding campaign.
The construction of the ILEA Institute – the future umbrella structure for all projects, the competence and research center for art, ecology and creative industries in the peripheral Alpine region – which has already begun this year, will be further advanced in the coming year. Currently, this undertaking is receiving support from the UBS Cultural Foundation and the NRP Berggebietsprogramm.
We wish you happy holidays, a good start into the new year – and look forward to seeing you again in the Safiental in 2023.
(Photo: Grass Museum by Dharmendra Prasad, Art Safiental 2022)
Stories of Grass
The new exhibition at the ILEA Gallery in the Berghotel Alpenblick in Tenna features “Stories of Grass”, a solo presentation by Indian artist Dharmendra Prasad. He spent about three months in the ILEA artist residency in Tenna last summer. During this time, he began to work intensively with grass as a material and medium. In the process, grass developed into a non-human personality for him. The exhibition is both a retrospective of the works created in Tenna (objects, drawings, texts, photographs, videos, performances and installations), and also the continuation of his work in India on the same topic. The Grass Museum above Tenna, which was part of the last Art Safiental Biennale can still be visited until the end of winter, is probably still well remembered by the local public.
Opening: 31. Dec 16.00 with guided tour and apéro
exhibition dates: 31. Dec 2022 – 29. Oct 2023
Handout
we made it!
Spot landing! Many thanks to all our 43 backers of the publication “Learning from the Earth”, you are great! We are happy to accept the order.
What happens next: In the new year we will start with the book production (editing, design, printing). We plan to have the book launch in spring at the Berghotel Alpenblick in Tenna/Safiental still in snowy mountains. All of you will then be invited for the launch.
After that the book will be delivered. The other rewards (postcards, Landscape 1) will also be sent then, those who ordered the 3 book package will get two shipments (since Landscape 2 will not be released until 2024). Those who have booked the Gift Basket or Sponsorship Bronze can get them early in the year if they wish, we will get back to you.
Thank you, have a nice holiday season and see you next year in the Safiental.
Johannes, ILEA
Web: https://ilea.art + https://artsafiental.ch
Insta: @land_and_environmental_art
FB: @alpsartacademy
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding campaign for the publication on the annual theme LEARNING FROM THE EARTH.
We would be very happy about your support – Fine rewards are waiting (books, knowledge, art, culinary and adventure in the Safiental) + and / or please also share – thank you in advance!
>> https://wemakeit.com/projects/learn-from-the-earth
(The promotion runs only until December 4, 2022)
SHORT FACTS
Vexer Verlag St.Gallen/Berlin
Annemarie Bucher (CH), Damian Christinger (CH), T.J. Demos (US), Friday for Future, Donna Haraway (US), Johannes M. Hedinger (CH), Naomi Klein (CA), Klimastreik (CH), Bruno Latour (FR), James Lovelock (UK), Timothy Morton (US), Dharmendra Prasad (IN), Michel Serres (FR), Vandana Shiva (IN), Greta Thumberg (SE) u.a.
Lara Almarcegui (ES, NL), Badel/Sarbach (CH), Ursula Biemann (CH), Julius von Bismarck (DE), Buchli/Isenschmid (CH), Com&Com (CH), Saskia Edens (CH), Lithic Alliance (CH/BE), Marcus Maeder (CH), !Mediengruppe Bitnik (CH/DE), Dharmendra Prasad (IN), Simon/Odermatt (CH), Sound Kite Ensemble (CH), Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger (CH), Ben Vautier (FR/CH).
Closing Program
Closing Program 21/22. Okt 2022 > PDF
Final Presentations Alps Art Academy
Program of the final presentations of the projects of the Alps Art Academy 2022 – 3.9.22: o8.30 – 17.30, Tenna >PDF
T.J. Demos: Unlearning Ecocide
Friday, August 26 2022, 8:30-9:15 PM CEST;
T.J. DEMOS: Unlearning Ecocide
ILEA Talks, August 26.-28, 2002, Tenna, Switzerland
Unlearning Ecocide
To learn from the earth, we must unlearn ecocide. That is no easy thing, as “we” are all inhabitants of the planet subjected–differentially–to the ongoing terms of racial, colonial, and extractive capitalism. Nonetheless, this unlearning emerges as a political imperative at the present time of climate breakdown, where global society, including diverse artistic cultures, face the collective challenge of transforming everything in order to ensure survival. What are the terms of this un/learning, and how can artistic practice aid the struggle?
T. J. Demos teaches art history and visual culture at UC Santa Cruz, and directs its Center for Creative Ecologies. He writes about contemporary art, global politics, and ecology and is the author of numerous books, including Decolonizing Nature: Contemporary Art and Political Ecology (Sternberg Press, 2016), Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today, (Sternberg Press, 2017), and most recently, Beyond the World’s End: Arts of Living at the Crossing (Duke University Press, 2020).
Streaming via YouTube
www.alpsartacademy.ch
www.ilea.art
ILEA Talks
Under the Title of the Biennal and as part of the Alps Art Academy and there will be a multi-day symposium from Friday evening, August 26 to Sunday noon, August 28, 2022.
Friday August 26.: 20.15 – 21.30
Saturday August 27.: 14 – 19.30
Sunday August 28.: 08.15 – 14.00
Detailed Program PDF
Keynotes:
Ursula Biemann / T.J. Demos / Fernando Garcia-Dory
Lectures:
Ravi Agarwal / Annemarie Bucher / Damian Christinger / Anne-Laure Franchette / Johannes M. Hedinger / Hanna Hölling / Cathérine Hug / Marcus Maeder / Martin Ott / Dharmendra Prasad / Shazeb Shaik
The symposium will take place in a hybrid form – partly with locally present speakers, partly online. The event is open to the public and aimed at a broad audience. A link to the live stream will be provided in August and will be accessible to all interested parties. Live Stream on YouTube.
Info Map Art Safiental
Overview map of all works and locations of the Art Safiental Biennale 2022. Digital HERE and as printed version from 2.7.22 in all village stores, restaurants, hotels and tourist points in the Safiental. Map in partnership with Transhelvetica.
