Art in Conflict – Practice
With Art in Conflict – Practice, we have expanded our lecture series to include a practice-oriented format: Together with artists, thinkers, and activists, we develop workshops, readings, screenings, and other formats for exchange. The focus is on practical work – exploring, connecting, and gaining an understanding of global perspectives. Artistic methods are tested and discussed in (post-)conflict contexts. We ask questions such as: How do we create a space where methods can be shared, relationships can grow, and new alliances can emerge? How can we build trust across spaces and realities? What does a solidarity-based artistic practice look like today?
Art in Conflict – Practice #1 – Connecting Communities & Cultures
From 28. to 30. November 2025, our new practice format Art in Conflict – Practice took place in Zurich for the first time. Nineteen participants from theatre, dance, music, and community work gathered at Maxim Theater to explore various artistic methods of socially engaged art under the guidance of artist Chimène Costa. Drawing on their own stories, the group experimented with open methods such as psychodrama, storytelling, body awareness, Playback Theatre, and Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, while exchanging experiences from their work with vulnerable communities.
Through a wide range of songs and rhythms that participants taught one another, they engaged with the concept of “culture”: What do we bring into the space? What is already here? What tends to slip away? What do we connect to?
The sharing of stories, the exchange of experiences, opening up, and allowing fragility and vulnerability – all this nurtured connections and a growing sense of understanding among the people in the room. It became tangible how trust develops and provides a basis for collaboration and change, allowing them to make a difference together. Yet this requires time and presence, something we noticed repeatedly during the workshop. Art in Conflict – Practice creates a space in which a community of socially engaged artists can grow.
The workshop was documented and accompanied through drawing by artist Özlem Ünlü.
Place and Year
Zurich, 2025
Participants
Oleksandra Belyaevskaya, Lara Castro Maia, Yumio Chanoki, Duygu Dogru, Beatrice Ferrari, Christoph Frick, Fortunat Frölich, Jean-Daniel Girod, Maja Hess, Bettina Holzhausen, Sinje Hoffmann, Maria Lobato, Katrin Oettli, Leide Olivera, Emeric Rabot, Anne Uphoff, Özlem Ünlü, Antolin Irene, Rana Yazaji
Facilitation
Chimène Costa
Project Management
Claudia Barth (artasfoundation)
Project Partner
Maxim Theater
Financial Contribution