The Fermenting Kunsthalle

When can an institution take a breath? How does an institution become a “work in progress”? As Kunsthalle Bern is faced with upcoming building work to strengthen the safety and improve access to our building in order to comply with the current fire regulations, we decided to embrace this change and use the time to develop a new working methodology: the fermenting Kunsthalle. A “work in progress” where our new vision for an institution of the future emerges: permeable and with access for all.

Fermentation is the breaking of molecules: we aim to de-construct and re-assemble anew. Inspired by the ecological principles of permaculture, which forms the basis of our new director iLiana Fokianaki’s upcoming curatorial concept and will be the thread connecting the various aspects of programming in the coming seven years, we begin from permaculture’s zone 0: the human and her settlement.

Preparing for our re-launch in spring 2025, and thinking of the institution as a home, we are asking the following questions: For whom are we a home? For whom could we become one? What does a house mean in 2025 in times of climate catastrophe? What does an eco-conscious institution look like?

Our goal is to work towards an institution that is not only accessible, but also makes room for collective spaces of care where new ideas for social and ecological justice can emerge. We will be building a program so as to discern the “seeds” we will be germinating in 2025, defining why we do what we do, how we do it and for whom. At the same time we will build on our “kin”: the network of organisations, collectives, members, partners and institutions that affect our ways of doing. Envisioning a permeable institution that escapes the confines of our walls, we are also programming events in the back garden, a space that historically has been a part of the program of the Kunsthalle Bern.

From June 2024 until March 2025 when we will have concluded our building work, we will continue programming, with access to parts of the building. This will allow time not only to re-organise towards more ecological ways of operating, and to re-think our working relationships but to exchange with local and international cultural players to conceptualize with us the Kunsthalle of today and the future. This program of events is entitled “With a little help from my friends” and it includes workshops, gatherings and discussions with the cultural scene of Bern, with various communities of the city and international cultural workers. Furthermore, it will introduce a new methodology drawing from the principles of permaculture that propose symbiotic and non-competitive relationships. We depart from neoliberal notions of the arts sector which normalize competitive approaches and instead we make space for the great work of our colleagues by hosting them to share their upcoming programs, present their program, joining forces to produce and discuss ethical ways of institutional operations and the future of curating.

In June we will inaugurate the program “Back to The Future”, which addresses climate catastrophe through activating the Kunsthalle Bern’s extensive archive. We are thinking of re-cycling, as a process of remembering, honouring and highlighting. “Back to The Future” resurfaces questions that were asked in the past but that might hold answers for our future. “Back to The Future” begins with an intervention by Swiss artist George Steinmann on June 28, revisiting his solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Bern from 2003. His work, timely and urgent, is concerned with the melting of the glaciers, still a burning issue in Switzerland today, and is part of a larger project of previous Kunsthalle Bern’s director Bernhard Fibicher together with Lorette Coen and Carmen Perrin, entitled “Schau, wie der Gletscher schwindet”.

July begins with the launch of the program “When Rain Clouds Gather”. The series presents an overview of artistic practices that will discuss the different imaginaries that shape visions of a socially and ecologically just future. The event will be launched with an extensive presentation of the collaborative practice of Denise Ferreira da Silva and Arjuna Neuman.

November and December will welcome Archive Books Berlin and the Cantonale Berne Jura exhibition. The re-launch of Kunsthalle Bern is planned for spring 2025. More details will be released in the coming months.

For more information please email Céline Matter at celine@kunsthalle-bern.ch.