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Discussion Series Art in Conflict – Gessnerallee Zurich

Wednesday, 18. Juni, 17.30h CEST
Stall 6, Gessneralle 6, Zürich & Zoom

Theatre as Generator for Political Liberation
with Iman Aoun (theater maker) and Toni Shapiro-Phim (director of the programme in Peacebuilding and the Arts and Chair of the minor in Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation, Brandeis University)

What can art achieve in regions affected by war? How do artists create opportunities for encounters and foster peaceful conflict resolution? Through its practice, artasfoundation is repeatedly confronted with these fundamental questions. The series Art in Conflict aims to delve into these questions by an exchange between practitioners and scholars. This series, presented as moderated table discussions by the artasfoundation team, explores specific topics grounded in practical experiences and theoretical insights.

The evening focuses on the exchange between a theater maker and a researcher with a background in dance, discussing the intersection of human rights and art. The accompanying text Performance. A conversation between Iman Aoun and Toni Shapiro-Phim explores the unique qualities of drama and artistic work in traumatic contexts in the form of an interview.

Spontaneous participation on site is always possible. Online participation is possible with prior registration. Free entry.

For the event on 18. June, please register here!

This event is part of a monthly series that is organised by the CAP, a joint initiative of artasfoundation and the ZHdK in cooperation with Theater Gessnerallee. Here you can subscribe to the current programme of Art in Conflict and stay up to date.

Supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia

Next Dates:

Wednesday, 24. September 2025 17.30 h CEST
Wednesday, 15. October 2025 17.30 h CEST
Wednesday, 26. November 2025 17.30 h CET
Wednesday, 17. December 2025 17.30 h CET
Wednesday, 14. January 2026 17.30 CET

Living Room – A Space for Artists, Organisations and Communities

The Living Room is a connecting space for displaced communities from Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian artists and international artists and cultural workers collaborating in varied social and artistic forms.

Besides the activities organised by artasfoundation, the space will also host other projects that simply need a space to work. The physical space is accessible for artists, organisations and communities involved in social transformation and looking for a space to practice, rehearse, gather, exchange, perform or simply meet.

Submit a request for booking the space

From 6. to 10. May 2025, the Living Room is organising the Art and Social Transformation Lab for the second time. We invite local artists, art educators, cultural managers and researchers engaged in art and social change. In a five-day laboratory, participants will develop project ideas and explore approaches to artistic engagement for social justice and a peaceful future.

Registration for New CAS Further Education Course Open!

The CAS Arts and International Cooperation focuses on the potential of the arts to support processes of social transformation and peace building. It emphasises fair and sensitive international and intercultural collaboration. The programme brings together an international group of participants. These include professionals in arts practices, peace building activists, project managers from internationally operating organisations and visionary people, all from different geopolitical contexts. Through a study-trip with field visits, the participants will gain an insight into actual art projects in fragile contexts. They will reflect on these projects based on tools and concepts from current literature and conclude with a mentored diploma thesis that relates to an individual project or work context.

The CAS is a cooperation project between Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and artasfoundation in the framework of the Center for Art and Peacebuilding (CAP) since 2016.

Further information and registration

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From the current circular

It is impossible to remain the same person after experiencing conflict. This also applies to being a friend, colleague, or partner of someone enduring violence. There are major turning points in life, and recognising our interrelationships with others, despite the illusion that we are isolated and protected in our seemingly simple, conflict-free lives overwhelmed by daily concerns, is undoubtedly one of them.

It is not only individuals who learn, but so too do institutions. They learn to embrace non-linearity, often by critically engaging with uncertainty and reinventing themselves to navigate the increasing international funding and political restrictions. Institutions can also evolve, not hierarchically, as was the traditional way, but horizontally, where unlearning remains a challenging yet creative exercise.

Transformative institutional shifts toward more collaborative models, such as sociocracy, have the potential, if successful, to significantly influence the field, particularly, but not exclusively, in fragile contexts. In the art field, institutional practices have long been shaped by management rules and mechanisms. Even the language used by institutions is heavily influenced by economic, military, and political frameworks, which starkly contradict the artistic need for openness and fluidity. This contributes to the marginalisation of art practices in mediation, peacebuilding, and social transformation, among other fields. Applying the same institutional logic to art as to other disciplines inevitably fails to yield comparable results. The repeated attempt to fit artistic institutions into these frameworks has been a battle that has been lost many times, and one we will keep on losing, because it is based on a false premise: the comparison of the incomparable.

At artasfoundation, we try to sustain this openness, indeterminacy and immeasurability of artworks and their impact every day, placing greater value on connectedness and organic growth rather than on economic values.

¹artasfoundation would like to underline that its use of names and titles particularly in regards to conflict regions should not be understood as implying any form of recognition or non-recognition by the foundation or as having any other political connotation whatsoever.

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