Culturescapes is a multidisciplinary biennial arts festival, celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2023. Since 2003, the festival focuses on the cultural landscapes of countries and regions. Based in Basel, Switzerland, it extends its presence far beyond one city or country with the network of more than 40 partner institutions all over Switzerland, in Belgium, and in the three-countries region between Switzerland, Germany, and France.
With each edition the festival aspires to promote cross-border dialogue and mutual learning between cultures, as well as cooperation and networking. Its founders believe that cultural relations and understanding is a gateway to more inclusive, open, and fair societies.
In 2023, the focus for Culturescapes’ 17th edition is on the Sahara region. By connecting the seas and oceans on the opposite sides of the continent, Sahara used to be a network of pathways, travel routes, carrying and connecting peoples and cultures. Together with artists and curators from within and around Sahara, Culturescapes wants to talk about Sahara today.
We look at the moving borders of the desert and the postcolonial borders of the African countries, question resilience as a key feature of political and socio-environmental reality in Africa, and imagine the possible futures as seen from the vastness of Sahara affected by climate change.
The full festival program can be found here.
Culturescapes is a member of EFA—European Festivals Association, IBA—International Biennial Association, ISPA—International Society for the Performing Arts, and the European Festivals Forest.
42’000
visitors
With each edition, the festival creates a diverse, multi-disciplinary program of events. Now, thanks to the online program visitors from all over the world can also participate in the festival.
15
cities
Each festival edition is a collaborative project developed and realized in cooperation with more than 40 different (cultural) institutions in all language regions of Switzerland.
130
artists
Culturescapes offers a variety of performative and collaborative opportunities to artists from Switzerland and the focus regions of the festival editions.
Team
Jurriaan Cooiman (he/him), Director
Born 1966 in the Netherlands. Founder and director of CULTURESCAPES.
He studied cultural management at the University of Basel. He was head of the production agency Performing Arts Services and worked with Od-theater, Circle X Arts, Sankai Juku, Werkbühne Berlin and the Goetheanum, among others. He has been the driving force and inspiration behind all festival editions since CULTURESCAPES was founded in 2003. He lectures on cultural management and networking and is a member of the European Festivals Association (EFA).
Kateryna Botanova (she/her), Co-curator
Born in 1976 in Khmelnytsky, Ukraine (then USSR). Curator, cultural critic and writer. Master of Arts in cultural studies. She was director of the Foundation Center for Contemporary Art in Kyiv, Ukraine, as well as founder and editor-in-chief of the online journal of contemporary culture Korydor.
In addition, worked as a trainer and consultant for various programs under the EU Eastern Partnership Culture Program, which focused on cultural policy analysis, cultural industries, and cultural journalism in the region. She advised the EU National Institutes for Culture EUNIC on issues of global cultural relations and cooperation. Kateryna regularly contributes to various media outlets.
Why did you want to work for CULTURESCAPES?
I joined the team in 2014 as an exhibitions curator. I soon realized that CULTURESCAPES as a festival offered a unique opportunity to combine many of the things I always appreciated about working in the cultural field: multidisciplinary approach, exploration of local cultural landscapes with global reach and significance, and connecting a diversity of artistic voices with different audiences. Over the years, we have developed Culturescapes into a platform for empowerment and awareness of the current issues of our time. I am happy to see Culturescapes as a growing space of caring and mutual learning between different societies and cultures, even far-flung ones, with the common goal of imagining a better and more sustainable future.
Board
Pius Knüsel, President of the Board
Pius Knüsel, born 1957 in Cham, Switzerland, graduated from the University of Zurich in German Literature and Philosophy.
Working as a freelance journalist, he was a co-founder of a political-cultural weekly paper for Central Switzerland in 1981. He worked as the cultural editor at Swiss Television from 1985 until 1992 and as an independent music promoter. Pius was the founder, artistic and business director of the Moods Jazz Club in Zurich from 1992 until 1997, as well as a board member of the European Jazz Network.
From 1998 until 2002 Pius was the head of the department of cultural sponsoring of Credit Suisse (retail branch) and in 2002 was appointed director of Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council. Since 2012 he is working in education for adults, teaching arts management and cultural policy at various universities in Switzerland and abroad.
Pius is also member of the boards of Mummenschanz Foundation, of Locarno Film Festival and of the Asociation of Swiss Adult Education Centres.
Sibel Arslan, Member of the board
Sibel Arslan (* 23 June 1980 in Erzincan, Turkey; citizenship of Basel) is a Swiss lawyer and politician. She is a member of the Basel National Council, a lawyer, Vice-President of the Green Party Switzerland, member and Vice-President of the Council of Europe, European Movement Switzerland (Vice-President), board member of the Society for Foreign Policy, President of Pro Familia Basel Regio, entrepreneur, and active in the coordination of the BastA! party.
Georg Estermann, Board Member
Born 1991 in Liestal. Studies at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland in Business Administration with specialization in Financial Management. Successfully completed training as a Swiss certified public accountant.
Works at Hoffmann & Partner AG as part-time or interim CFO and supports the finance department in the areas of reporting, controlling, accounting, taxes and HR. Prior to that, he worked for Ernst & Young for more than seven years. Of which one year as lead auditor of audit, IFRS and Swiss GAAP FER mandates for companies of different sizes and industries.
He was a guest lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland from 2020 to 2022, teaching the Audit module. He is also a member of the Expert Commission SME Audit of EXPERTsuisse.
Christoph Keller, Board Member
Born in Zurich in 1959.
Freelance reporter, author, presenter and initiator of the platform www.podcastlab.ch.
Until spring 2019 he was head of the editorial department art & society at Radio SRF2 Kultur and was the author of many programmes in the formats Kontext, Passage and Hörpunkt. Previously, he worked as a reporter at the MAGAZIN for Tages-Anzeiger, Berner Zeitung and Basler Zeitung for many years, as an editor and reporter for WochenZeitung WoZ and as a research assistant for the National Research Programme 51 on integration and exclusion. Today he also writes for REPORTAGEN, GEO, EDITO and other publications.
He is the author of «Der Schädelvermesser» (1995), «Alamor drei Tage» (2007), «Übers Meer» (2013) and «Hotel Galaxy» (2018). In addition, he is a lecturer at the Zurich University of Arts and at the Swiss School of Journalism MAZ in Lucerne and also works as a presenter at regional, national and international events.
He is married, has two grown-up daughters, lives in Basel and temporarily on a sailboat on Lake Neuchâtel.
Annette Schönholzer, Board Member
Over 20 years of experience in the Swiss and international world of the arts and culture. She has worked in leading positions in arts funding, as a project and event manager, as co-director of the international art fair Art Basel and as managing director of the Kunstmuseum Basel.
Throughout her career, she has served on various boards and cultural juries, facilitating and developing concepts and organizations, locally, nationally and internationally. She founded .connect the dots in November 2014, an independent company providing consulting, coaching and concept services.
She has been living in Basel since 2002, where she is also married. In her free time culture and nature are top of her list: art, music, literature, theater, travelling abroad, hiking and biking in the Swiss Alps are sources of inspiration.
Henri-Michel Yéré, Board Member
Born 1978 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, lives in Basel since 2003. He is a researcher based at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Basel, and an adjunct lecturer at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL.)
A trained historian, Henri has worked on questions of citizenship and nationality in the colonial and postcolonial contexts. His more recent work has taken a sociological slant, looking at the relationships between the natural sciences and society at large. Henri has worked for seven years at the headquarters of Novartis in Basel, occupying various responsibilities in the field of Diversity and Inclusion.
As a poet, Henri has published two books of poetry (2015), as well as poems and articles in various literary journals.
Books
Support Us
Together with artists and curators from the Sahara and its surroundings, Culturescapes would like to talk about Sahara today during the next festival edition. Would you like to support the non-profit foundation Culturescapes in this endeavor?
from CULTURESCAPES!