Foundation

Born in Switzerland, Silvia Bächli lives and works in Basel and Paris and is Professor at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe, Germany. She has shown her drawings, paintings and photographic works internationally at many exhibitions, most recently in a solo-show at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. Silvia Bächli represented Switzerland at the 53rd Biennale di Venezia and received the Prix Meret Oppenheim from the Swiss Federal Office of Culture. In November 2014 Silvia Bächli was awarded with the Kulturpreis der Stadt Basel.
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Multi-instrumentalist Albin Brun was born in Lucerne in 1959 and is a key figure in a scene that spans jazz and new folk music. Albin Brun is active in many ways: as a member of bands such as the Albin Brun Alpin Ensemble and duos with artists such as Patricia Draeger; a composer of film and theatre scores for Tim Krohn & Co.; and a guest lecturer at Lucerne University. Albin Brun is the winner of the Swiss Music Prize 2017.

born 6.3.1947, lives and works in Basel. Several solo and group exhibitions in Switzerland, Germany or in South Africa. Regular cooperation-projects with other artists, so, for example, in the project ‘Erstes Manifest grosser und angesehener Künstlerinnen’ or ‘The road to nieu Bethesda’.
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Patricia Draeger was born and raised in Zug. She completed her musical studies in contemporary music and the flute in Winterthur, Biel, Amsterdam and The Hague. Since 1992 she is accordionist and musical director of several theatre productions. She is a member of a duo with Sergej Simbirev, as well as the ‘Trio Avodah’ (European folkmusic) and the ensemble ‘Paralpin’. Since 2008 she is part of the ‘Albin Brun Alpin Ensemble’.

born 1977, lives and works in Zurich and deals with voice, percussion and body music. Jean-Daniel Girod focuses his work on the combination of rhythm and voice and leads workshop series on ‘Voice + Body Percussion’ at the Konservatorium Winterthur and in Zurich. Girod participates in musical projects for people with disabilities by the Tobias-Haus in Zurich (‘Tobi’s Welt’), is a member of the music group ‘Mirabilis’ (Markus Maggiori, Sandra Weiss; concerts in authentic medieval style) and does percussion and voice for the world music group by Adrian Egger ‘Zussambalan’. In collaboration with artasfoundation Jean-Daniel Girod leads the workshops of the ‘International Choir’ in Abkhazia (2017–2018) and in the Tavush region of Armenia (2018–2019).

Monika Günther (born 1944 in Germany) and Ruedi Schill (born 1941 in Switzerland) live and work in Lucerne. They collaborate as performance artists since 1995 on a national and international level. From 1998 until 2013 they also worked as artistic directors of the Festival ‘International Performance Art Giswil / Turbine Giswil’.

Kilian Haselbeck (1986) started dancing with HipHop and later Ballet at the Ballet Centre Gerda von Arb (Zurich) followed by a BA in contemporary dance at Codarts Rotterdam Dance Academy, 2008. Since then he has been working as a freelance dancer and choreographer internationally.
Meret Schlegel (1951) is a dancer, dance teacher, dramaturge. She has had a long and distinguished career in dance both on stage and off, performing across Europe and the US, often collaborating with artists from other disciplines. She has worked in many cultural institutions in Zürich including 11 years as director of the Dance House Zurich (Tanzhaus). After leaving Tanzhaus she resumed her career as a dancer and performer. 2012 she started collaborating with Kilian Haselbeck. The joint work ‘Orthopädie or to be’ (2013) they toured nationally and internationally. Cie zeitSprung was founded in 2013.
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Silas Heizmann lives and works as a visual artist in Basel, where he graduated from the Art University in 2016. One of the focus points of his work lies in graphic and printing, but he is also active, among other fields, in video-art. Silas received scolarships for residencies in Armenia and was active in several artasfoundation projects in Western Georgia / Abkhazia.
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Anina Jendreyko was born in Germany, she works and lives in the Kurdish regions, in Greece, Germany and Switzerland. She studied in Berlin at the UDK and works as an actress, theatre director and lecturer. In her artistic work she addresses questions of identity, society, transculturality and power relations. In addition to theatre productions, she works with the tools of theatre in national and international conflict- and crisis areas, especially in the Middle East. Currently she has developed a play about and with Yezidi women from and in Shengal/ Northern Iraq about their self-empowerment and the liberation process.
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was born in Mehrabpur Sindh, Pakistan, and currently lives and works in Lahore and Karachi. He obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the National College of Arts, Lahore in 2001. He was chosen as the best contemporary poet by the Sindhi Literary Society in 1999. In 2004, Ayaz directed a short film that was later selected for the 4th Kara Film Festival in Karachi. He was also Artist-in-residence at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany, from 2004–2005.

Dani Kouyaté was born in a griot family in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso in 1961. After a degree in film studies from the University of Ouagadougou, he continued his studies in film at the Sorbonne, Paris. He directed a number of films and theater plays in Europe and Africa, for example the film Keïta!, which received the Best First Film Prize at the Panafrican Film Festival in Ouagadougou and the Junior Prize at the Film Festival in Cannes (1995). After living in Paris for twenty years, he is now living in Uppsala, Sweden where he teaches theater.

born in Luzern, works as a visual artist and lecturer. In her artistic work she realises installations, performances and projects. Recent Exhibitions: Temperatures (Artisterium, Center for Contemporary Art, Tbilisi), Postfordismus/Fordismus (with Tim Zulauf, mobile cinema Zürich), Reserven (Kunsthof Zürich), Proiezioni (mit Peter Emch, artria, Locarno), Bühne (Helmhaus Zürich), Office (Fri-Art Fribourg), Shanghai Open End Gallery (Chicago). Since 2003 Franziska Koch works as a lecturer in Visual Arts at the Zürich University of the Arts, where she teaches workshops on sound art, installation art, performance, production aesthetics, or video art and works in collaborative projects with other universities.
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Tellervo Kalleinen (born 1975) is an artist from Helsinki, known for her video films and performance-oriented work. She studied art at the Art Academy of Hamburg and of Braunschweig and received a Master of Fine Arts from the Finish Academy of Fine Arts in 2003. Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen (born 1971) studied at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and finished his degree at the Art Academy of Hamburg in 2001.Since 2003 both of them collaborate. They realised and showed their videos, performances and events – often inviting people’s participation – in many different countries, for example at the Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), P.S.1 (New York), The Kitchen (New York), Shedhalle (Zürich), Kunsthalle Fridericianum (Kassel), Hamburg Kunsthalle, KUMU (Tallinn), das KIASMA (Helsinki), S.M.A.K. (Gent), Museo de Arte Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires) und Ars Electronica Center (Linz). In 2012 they won the most significant Media Art Award in Finland, the AVEK Award.
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Website Tellervo Kalleinen

born in 1973, Arkhip Labakhua (pseudonym: Sipa) is a leading Abkhaz artist, living and working in Sukhum/i. He studied fine arts in Tbilisi and Moscow and works with a variety of techniques in the fields of sculpture, design and stage design, as well as in photography. He travels as a puppeteer and troubadour with his own puppet theatre productions. In 2000 he received the Grand Prix of the Gent Festival of Marionette Theaters for his production ‘Red Actor’.
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The Swiss Band consists of four women, Michéle Fuchs, Fränzi Madörin, Muda Mathis, Sus Zwick, with a background in Visual Arts, Music and Performance Art. Founded in 1987, they remain true to a continuous engagement for friendship, feminism and collective production. Touring Switzerland and Europe with a new concert program every year, thy meet a core audience. So far, the band has produced more than ten CDs.
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born 1977 in Lausanne, works and lives in Geneva. After his studies at the Alauns Hochschule für Kunst und Gesellschaft in Bonn (Germany) and a four-months internship in the area of archeology, Beat continued his studies at the Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design in Geneva. Since then, Beat had several international exhibitions.
Beat collaborated with artasfoundation in the framework of the Curator’s initiative. After this project, Beat stayed and worked for three months in China, where he exhibited his works in the museum of contemporary art MOCA. Beat works on questions about borders, about the the translation of cultural codes, and asks himself how the task of artists can be reconciled with reality and multidisciplinarity.
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Philip Matesic (1983) is an American artist, living and working in Zürich, Switzerland. He earned his Master of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2008, where he researched and experimented extensively on social potentials of art. His social art practice includes the weekly organisation and moderation of Theory Tuesdays and Practical Fridays, along with a range of local and international community-based, participatory art projects.
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was born in Munich, Germany. She studied art history in Munich and Visual Arts in Münster and Berlin. She has made several individual exhibitions in Europe, and has published several books including ‚Innenwelt: Fotografien aus Rumänien und aus dem Exil (Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2007)’.
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Shoghakat Mlke-Galstyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia. She is active as actress, dancer and art manager/art organizer. Her passion is the contemporary performing arts. She is the founder and soloist of the MIHR theatre, manager of the Tiezerk Band and lecturer at the Yerevan State Institute of Theatre and Cinematography. She is the author/director of projects in the USA, Germany, France, Cyprus, Georgia, Turkey, Russia, Armenia and other countries. In 2016 she received the honored Golden Medal from the Ministry of Culture of RA. In 2017 she attended successfully the CAS Arts and International Cooperation at the Zurich University of Arts.

NEUE DRINGLICHKEIT (nD) is a Zurich-based art and performance collective. Within their work they perform a shift between the borders of ‘arts’, ‘politics’ and ‘life’. In alternating constellations the collective develops among other things workshops, interventions, festivals and theater projects. NEUE DRINGLICHKEIT evolved during a spontaneous art festival against xenophobia in Switzerland in 2010 at the ‘Department for Performance Art and Film’ at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).
Their works have been shown at Venice Biennale of Architecture 2014; Favoriten Theater Festival, Dortmund 2014; Gessnerallee Zürich et al.
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born in 1969 in Ban Me Thuot, Vietnam, lives and works in Zurich. His photographic works, installations and video-works have been shown in solo- and group exhibitions in Switzerland, Israel, USA, or Germany and received international awards.
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Raumlabor are a group of architects based in Berlin, Germany. They came together in 1999 in response to the rapid and unrestrained development of the city following the fall of the Berlin wall. Their playful approach critiques this dominant mode of architectural production and tries to influence them. It proposes temporary projects that transform the urban landscape: pneumatic structures, submarines made out of waste materials, and half-serious projects such as building a mountain from the rubble produced through uncovering a buried canal are all part of their repertoire.
Working in between the fields of architecture and public art, Raumlabor, whose name means ‘space laboratory’, create projects based around events, performance and theatre. Primarily working in public space, they see the task of the architect as highlighting problems rather than solving them. Their projects try to open up a space of communication and negotiation, in which relations can be made and conflicts played out.
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Augustin Rebetez (born 1986, Switzerland) creates poetic worlds out of simple materials. His pictures, drawings, installations or stop-motion movies depict a tragicomical reality. The results plays to the creation of a visually playful, moving universe.
Since 2009, he has participated to numerous exhibitions, mostly in Europe but also in North America, South Korea, Nigeria, Mexico, Lebanon, India and Australia. He was awarded by PhotoFolio Review at the Rencontres d’Arles in France (2010), The Swiss Photo Award (2012), the Kiefer Hablitzel Prize (2012) and the Vevey International Photo Award (2013–2014).
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Anne Rochat is a Swiss video and performance artist who was born in 1982 in the Vallée de Joux, Switzerland. She studies art Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne, in 2010 she received the Swiss Art Award, 2012 the Kiefer Hablitzel Award. Since 2013 she teaches at the Art University of Geneva (Head) in the section Art/Action.
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born in Tbilisi in 1979, she studies experimental sculpture with Rosemarie Trockel at the Düsseldorf Art Academy (2000–2002) and graphic reproduction at Tbilisi State Academy of Art (2002–2004). In her conceptually oriented work she uses different media. In 2005 she initiated the music project ‘Dario Radio’ together with Kate Siamashvili, since then she showed her works in numerous exhibitions in Georgia, Moscow and German speaking countries. She received fellowships from Akademie Schloss Solitude and Binz39, Zürich, among others. In 2012 Nino Sekhniashvili initiated the exhibition space Nectar in Tbilisi.
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Born in the Netherlands, Lidwien van de Ven lives and works in Rotterdam and Berlin. Her photographs, installations, and videos have been shown in major international exhibitions, including the Sidney Biennial 2006, Documenta 12, and most recently in Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid. Lately Lidwien van de Ven was nominated for the 2014 Dolf Henkes Award in Rotterdam.
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was born in Calgary, Canada and raised within the gated headquarters of Saudi Aramco, the largest transnational oil corporation in the world. She attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and obtained an MA at McGill University in 2007. She has regularly exhibited her works in shows across North America, in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Her works have been included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, and the British Museum, London. She currently lives and works in Montreal, Canada.
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the singer and voice-improviser was born in 1965 and lives and works in Winterthur and Berlin. Franziska Welti teaches voice classes at Konservatorium Winterthur and the choirs leads Singfrauen Winterthur and Singfrauen Berlin. She has been part of various world premieres and has collaborated with well-known ensembles in the field of new and early music; she has a brisk concert activity at home and abroad, among other places also in Georgia. Among other awards, Franziska Welti also received the Kulturpreis by the city of Winterthur (2009). In collaboration with artasfoundation Franziska Welti leads the workshops of the ‘International Choir’ in Abkhazia (2017–2018) and in the Tavush region of Armenia (2018–2019).
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was born in 1961 in Zurich, studied from 1980 until 1984 at the Ecole Supérieure d’Art Visuel in Geneva. In her sculptural and installative works she combines scientific abstraction with narrative poetry. Solo and group exhibitions mainly in Switzerland and Germany. Since 2004, Andrea teaches at the Bern University of the Arts.
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Aamta foundations runs SKLAD – a cultural center in Sukhum/i focused on promoting contemporary art and various cultural activities such as filmscreenings, lectures, workshops etc. It strives to build international connections, involve the community and encourage local artists.
Social Media

The Adami Media-Prize seeks to network journalists, filmmakers and media professionals in Eastern European countries and the Caucasus for the purpose of promoting interest in the media and cultural diversity in these regions.
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The office for cultural cooperation, artlink, is the Swiss centre of competence for arts and culture from Afrika, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. It documents, collaborates with and supports professional artists from these regions who are artistically active in Switzerland and promotes intercultural cooperation.
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The Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts is affiliated with the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University. Its emphasis is on the contribution of culture and art to conflict transformation. Under the heading of Impact: Imagine together, it has initiated an international platform for art, culture and conflict transformation.
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The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (the HD Centre) is an independent mediation organisation, based in Geneva. It is dedicated to improving the global response to armed conflict.
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The Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich is engaged in the study of Swiss and international security studies. Its activities are structured into the four pillars of research, teaching, think tank, and the International Relations and Security Network (ISN).
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The Culture and Management Lab is a Tbilisi (Georgia) based organization which is active in the field of arts and project management, education and consulting.
Social Media

Ettijahat – Independent Culture is a Syrian cultural organisation founded at the end of 2011. In the process of cultural and social changes, Ettijahat seeks to activate and render the role of independent culture and arts more positive. It does this by supporting artists and undertakers of cultural initiatives, enabling young researchers, working to build consensus and alliances between individuals and cultural institutions, promoting the arts and artists through regional and international platforms, and helping Syrian communities wherever they are to have access to culture and arts.
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The DRC is a humanitarian, non-governmental, non-profit organisation. It is providing direct assistance to conflict-affected populations in 30 different countries.
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The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation is Switzerland’s international cooperation agency within the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. It is responsible for the overall coordination of development activities and cooperation with Eastern Europe, as well as for the humanitarian aid delivered by the Swiss Confederation.
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Is the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of the Swiss Confederation.
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The Art Academy of the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland is located at the ‘Campus der Künste’ in Basel. It is active in research, and in the education of artists, designers and art educators.
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The IDP Women’s Union of Tskaltubo is a non-governmental, non-profit organization in the Imereti province of Georgia. It was founded by Lali Grigolava, and supports families who have been displaced in the secession war of Abkhazia and live in the town of Tskaltubo now.
Email Lali Grigolava

The Imagining Together Platform for Arts, Culture and Conflict Transformation (IMPACT), is a worldwide, values-driven collaboration to design and activate strategies to strengthen the arts, culture and conflict transformation ecosystem. This includes individuals and organisations working on the international stage and in local neighborhoods, creating festivals and crafting policies, documenting practices and developing theories, enlivening communities and building bridges across differences.
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The Centre for Peacebuilding (KOFF) is a dialogue, exchange and networking platform for peacebuilding organisations.
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Kunsthof Holm is a place for artistic exchange between people who are interested in (visual) art and in the connections between art and the challenges of the present: war and peace, the destruction of nature and the environment. Maren Haartje and Günther Baechler (both members of the artasfoundation advisory board) took over the farm in summer 2017.
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Landscapes of Hope is a network initiated by Action for Hope, a Lebanese NGO that, among other things, offers art-education in refugee settlements The network aims to reach beyond the realm of cultural organisations in order to connect civil society organizations across all sectors, and explore more general possibilities for working with art for bringing about effective social change in situations of distress.
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The Independent Network for Local and Global Sounds and Media Culture focuses on experimental and urban music and music scenes all over the world. As an international platform it aims to understand and show the many and often contradictory faces of cultural globalization and localization through articles written by musicians, scholars and music journalists from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe and the US.
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The Ochamchyra Youth House is a NGO, which organises further education and cultural activities for children and youth in the city of Ochamchyra on the Black Sea cost.
Email Selma Zantarya

This foundation is mandated by the Swiss Confederation to promote artistic creation, foster cultural outreach and facilitate cultural exchange at home and with other countries.
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Society Biliki is a non-governmental, non-profit organization. It was founded in May 1997, in Gori, a town in Shida Kartli province of Georgia and concentrates on working with children and youth from low-income families or with a refugee background.
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This state-supported university and institute of higher education located in Yerevan is specialized in pedagogy and the training of teaching personnel.
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The Swiss Peace Foundation is a practice-oriented peace research institute located in Bern. It analyzes the causes of violent conflicts in order to develop strategies for their peaceful transformation and supports Swiss and international actors in their peacebuilding activities.
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The Zurich University of the Arts (Zurich, Switzerland) is one of Europe’s largest universities of the arts. It offers a unique range of programmes from further education opportunities to undergraduate, postgraduate and research degrees in design, film, art, media, music, dance, theatre and art education.
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Andreas and Brigitte Albicker, Evelyn Albin, Renate Amuat, Therese Augsburger and Jürg Spörri, Günther Bächler, Daniel Baumann, Barbara Berger Schindler, Martina Bernasconi, Charlotte Bhattarai, Regula Bibus-Waser, Eva Bischofberger, Rezio Blass, Marianne Bleuler-Herzog, Peter Bleuler, Astrid Bodisch, Giovanni and Bettina Borrelli, Daniela Brunner, Heidi Burkhardt-Hollinger, Jean-Marie Clarke, Catherine David, Jaques Diday-Baumann, Ursina Dorer, Renato Duckeck, Fabio Eiselin Wenger, Yvonne Fahrni, Eberhart Freeman Penelope, Rita Frey Schuppisser, Johanna Ensinger, Silvia Flachsmann, Katharina Flieger, Doris Füllemann, Christian Fürholz, Patrick Gamba, Bettina Ganz Gorgi, Gianni Garzoli, Simon Gaus, Stefan Gerster, Hans Rudolf Glatz, Ursina B. Gloor Weisskopf, Peter Goop, Dr. Konrad Grimm-Kistler, Gruppenpraxis Paradies, Thomas Gutmann, Juerg and Mirjam Häubi-Sieber, Corinne Haffter Schaffner, Regula Hatt-Suter, Trix and Robert Heberlein, Thomas Heimann, Claus Hipp, Anne Hoffer, Esther Barbara Honegger, Hermann Huber-Bossert, Helene Esther Huldi, Ioannis and Dorothea Iglezakis, Ilya and Marina Karlin, Clare Kenny, Franziska Koch, Heinrich König, Silvia Konig Koellreutter, Maia and Stefan Kraft, Heidi Kramer, Silvia Kraus-Billeter, Konrad Krim-Kistler, Patrick Kull, Regula Langemann, Andreas Lauber, Sandro Lunin, Sigrid Launois-Meyer, Francoise Marcuard, Cornelia Markovic-Leu, Philip Matesic, Sandra Mazzoni, Oskar Meyer, Evelyne Monney, Cyrus Mosayebi, Stefanie und Peter Luethy, Nicole Müller, Martin Naegelin, Danielle Nanchen, Geneviève Nanchen-Lucette, Beatrice Naville, Nadine Naville, Ursula Peters, Linda Pfenninger, Theresia Elisabeth Pfluger, Elodie Pong, Dorothea von Rechenberg, Nanni Reinhart Schinz, Hans Roth-Rohner, Eliane Rutishauser, Liliane Ryser, Andrea Saemann, Karin Saemann, Lilian Saemann, Martina Schäfer Läser, Peter Schindler, Meret Schlegel, Elisabeth Schmid Klaui, Barbara Schneider, Doris Beate Lux Schnitter, Marcel Schwald, Markus Schwander, Beat Siegrist, Peter Sprenger, Rudolf Stocker, Robert Strebel, Angela Stupp, Marianne Theis, Ruth Tippe, Alice Thomann, Christine Thomann-Hatt, Tanuja Thurairajah, Oleg Tkatch, Gisela Ullmann-Jungfer, Philip and Verena Urner-Diggelmann, Marianne Vogler, Barbara von Reibnitz, Thomas and Elisabeth von Salis, Brigit Wehrli Schindler, Franziska Welti, Andrea Wolfensberger, Bettina Z’Rotz, Brigitta Zuest, Mara Züst.

Update: April 2020

Abteilung Menschliche Sicherheit (AMS) des Eidgenössischen Departements für auswärtige Angelegenheiten (EDA)
Bayer (Schweiz) AG
Caran d’Ache
Direktion für Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit (DEZA)
Fair Future Foundation
Fondation Smartpeace
Fürstlicher Kommerzienrat Guido Feger Stiftung
Gerda Techow Gemeinnützige Stiftung
Guido Feger Stiftung
H.E.M. Stiftung
Heinrich Böll Stiftung
Interpreten Stiftung
Isabell und Dr. Friedrich Vogel-Stiftung
Kulturabteilung der Stadt Zürich
Max Kohler Stiftung
MP Amministrazioni Immobiliari
Mercator Stiftung
Organisation für Sicherheit und Zusammenarbeit in Europa (OSZE), Task Force
Plakatgesellschaft Basel
Pro Concepta Zug AG
RHW-Stiftung
Schweizer Kulturstiftung Pro Helvetia
Schweizerische Interpreten Stiftung (SIS)
Stanley Thomas Johnson Stiftung
Stiftung Corymbo
Stiftung Dr. Jacques Edwin Brandenberger
Stiftung Mercator Schweiz
Stroh zu Gold
Thomas Abegg Stiftung für Geist und Kultur
Valüna Stiftung
Von Duhn Stiftung
ZHDK

Update: April 2020