Chemin de la Becque 1
1814 La Tour-de-Peilz Vaud
Switzerland
T +41 21 973 25 13
info@labecque.ch
Located on an exceptional site on the shores of Lake Geneva in La Tour-de-Peilz, midway between Vevey and Montreux, the artist residency La Becque was developed under the conduct of the Fondation Françoise Siegfried-Meier. From spring 2019, it will start welcoming artists from all over the world, both up-and-coming and confirmed practitioners, active in potentially all artistic disciplines, cultivating classical as well as the most contemporary forms of expression.
In order to develop and bring this important residency project to its full potential, the Foundation board chose Luc Meier (who bears no relationship to the founder), for his rich and varied curriculum, his strong Swiss and international networks and his track record in setting up original transdisciplinary cultural programs. “We were looking for a strong personality capable of putting into place an ambitious residency program that can make its mark regionally, nationally, and internationally,” says Tamara Jenny-Devrient, a member of the Foundation board.
A Swiss national, Luc Meier was born in 1981 in Vevey. After studying international relations in Geneva, he was active for more than 10 years outside of Switzerland, in particular in Japan and in the United States. He notably set up the transdisciplinary art + technology program common to the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and swissnex San Francisco. Starting in 2013, he then coordinated program development for the ArtLab initiative, on the campus of EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. Currently the head of programs at ArtLab, he has also developed several other projects in the interval, collaborating with the Centre culturel suisse in Paris among others.
“Switzerland has an art education system of the highest order, particularly in this part of the country where the concentration of quality institutions across sectors (visual arts, design, performing arts) is particularly dense within the HES-SO (University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland) network. We intend to open La Becque to these schools’ graduates so that new generations of artists can learn from the more established practitioners they will encounter at La Becque, “ Luc Meier explains. “Conversely, access to the art education and production networks of this region and of Switzerland as a whole will be key to our attractiveness for international residents—just as much as the natural splendor of the site and its immediate environment.”
“Technology will remain a core focus of mine, and this will be reflected in the selection of artists present at La Becque,” Meier continues. “The residency will offer a platform for creative inquiries into our contemporary ties to technology, and to our ties to nature. These two are intimately linked today and they are inescapable topics, whatever the artistic discipline. The contemporary state of music for example, which was particularly dear to the founder of our institution, reflects that fact very clearly.”
Inauguration events will be held in mid-September 2018 on the site of La Becque in La Tour-de-Peilz. The complete event program will be announced at a later date.
It is also in September that a first call for applications will be issued, for residencies taking place the following year (starting in spring 2019). All information relative to the call and selection process will be published on La Becque’s website.
About Fondation Françoise Siegfried-Meier and La Becque Artist Residency
La Becque artist residency was developed under the auspices of the Fondation Françoise Siegfried-Meier.
A violionist of renown born in 1914, Françoise Siegfried-Meier showed an unswerving commitment to the artists of her time. Generous and passionate, she expressed a wish to durably support a number of public organizations and institutions, particularly in the field of the arts, by creating a foundation bearing her name.
Françoise Siegfried-Meier wish for her family’s domain in La Tour-de-Peilz to become a haven of creativity and exchange is now realized through La Becque, a residency infrastructure that is a natural fit for this unique and stunningly beautiful site.
