Swiss Artistic Research Network

Imagine the worst, and then make art. Palestinian artist couple Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme know the worst, they live it. It didn’t rob them of their creativity, it powers it. Their work Prisoners of Love: Until the Sun of Freedom is highly engaged/political and, what’s more, it is unapologetically beautiful. Being in their immersive installation makes you aware of all the contradictions you can imagine within a human life. The soundscape, loud, adds to a feeling of unease vs. enjoyment. It makes you go through all possible emotions. But the thing is: there is beauty in all of it, and that’s where the amazement settles in your mind. That’s where you feel the power of good art: Prisoners of Love speaks about horror while easing our souls with beauty. We leave this amazing space with our hearts full of hope.
 
>> Prisoners of Love. THE KOKRA FAMILY reviews Prisoners of Love: Until the Sun of Freedom by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme on view at Kunstinstituut Melly until 27 Sept 2026.
 
>> THE KOKRA FAMILY is a q***r collective, researching the concept of family in all its manifestations. We believe in the ‚deep family‘, kinship can occur anywhere, there are more ties than just blood ties, there are possibilities beyond what is law.
 



 
From guest editor Nienke Terpsma
Photographs of the exhibition by THE KOKRA FAMILY
More at sarn.ch/publications
 
mircoreview

The Swiss Artistic Research Network (SARN) is looking for a Coordinator (20%, classification: artistic/scientific assistant)

>> full call: link in bio

Workload
20%, flexible, depending on the events and highlights of the SARN calendar

Location
Geneva (on site), with meetings either online or occasionally in Bern, Zurich or Basel.

Application deadline
June 26th, 2026

Start
September 2026

The Swiss Artistic Research Network SARN represents artists and researchers from the seven Swiss Universities of the Arts as well as independent artists and researchers engaged in artistic research. It promotes the significance of artistic research in the arts, other fields of academia and wider societal contexts in Switzerland and internationally. SARN seeks to enrich conditions and contexts for artistic researchers in Switzerland through open exchange, work group activities, publications, workshops and symposia. SARN facilitates debate and dialogue about issues concerning artistic research between artistic research communities, institutions of higher education, foundations and public and private competence centers. SARN was established 2011 by the Swiss Universities of Art and Design Conference (KHKD)

The Swiss Artistic Research Network (SARN) is looking for a Coordinator (20%, classification: artistic/scientific assistant)

*Link to full call in bio*

Workload
20%, flexible, depending on the events and highlights of the SARN calendar

Location
Geneva (on site), with meetings either online or occasionally in Bern, Zurich or Basel.

Application deadline
June 26th, 2026

Start
September 2026

In each episode of solar.lowtech.be Kris De Decker researches a basic human technique; long-term, detailed, hands-on, with enormous curiosity, technical precision and historical depth. Organised under Low-tech Solutions, High-tech Problems, and Obsolete Technology there are articles on “Waste-fed fish ponds”, “Fruit Walls” and “Pigeon Towers”. Meanwhile the site itself is an invention, experimentation, and demonstration of a “solar-powered and self-hosted” website “designed to radically reduce the energy use associated with accessing our content” with regular analysis and updates on tweaks and improvements. Design and journalism are involved, topics branch out over years. The latest post, a collaboration with design student Kozimo, is about (the process of building) a handcart, but also a “what if” about the means of transport we generally use and take for granted. The authors build and test the handcart in real life, ponder philosophically and offer the reader an extensive “how-to“. De Decker’s research lifts me up out of a narrow understanding of the here and now and back to the shared basics of dealing with our fragile mammal bodies: real poetry.

>> The way we do things. Persemina Kent reviews Kris De Decker and Kozimo: “Rediscovering the Hand Cart”, in Low-tech Magazine, 2026.

>> Persemina Kent is an independent artist-researcher, aspiring to self-build and for the moment based in Brussels.

>> Low-tech Magazine was founded in November 2007 by Kris De Dekker. Since 2018, the magazine runs on a in self-hosted, solar-powered server in Barcelona which sometimes goes offline. Written by Kris Den Dekker, solar web designed by Marie Verdeil, Roel Roscam Abbing, and Marie Otsuka, it publishes at most 12 well-researched stories per year. Since 2019, LTM also appears in print for offline reading.


From guest editor Nienke Terpsma

Full image captions and more at http://sarn.ch/publications

Big, bigger, biggest ever. Rotterdam Art Week is the week when Rotterdam does Art. Everyone is sucked into its orbit: artists, venues, audiences. All eager to encounter Art with a capital A. Amidst the rush a few may ask themselves, is big really better? Particularly those at the PrintRoom on Friday night for the launch of Talker #16, an interview zine by Giles Bailey. For the launch, this edition’s interviewee Martín La Roche shared his Musée Légitime, a museum in a hat. With each tiny artwork contained within, came an anecdote for how it entered La Roche’s millinery collection. These tales bound intricately to the miniature objects themselves possessed their own profound pull, drawing the artist and the audience together. An interweaving of storytelling and public presentation that truly takes you, in La Roche’s own words, “beyond the performance and the art”.

>> In a hat. Jake Caleb reviews 10 years of Talker! and the launch of Talker #16, featuring live performances by Giles Bailey and Martín La Roche, at PrintRoom Rotterdam, Friday 27 March.

>>Talker is an interview zine about performance by artist Giles Bailey. Since 2012 each issue publishes a long-form interview with an artist who works in an innovative way with live practice.

>>Martín La Roche is a visual artist living in Amsterdam. His works often find their starting points from existing collections of objects and memories, archives as modes of storytelling which he reassembles into installations, performances or publications. He runs Musée Légitime.

>>Jake Caleb is an artist based in Rotterdam. He formalises his artistic research through exhibition making, hosting events and organising initiatives. He also works as a photographer for (a.o.) PrintRoom.


From guest editor Nienke Terpsma

Full image captions and more at http://sarn.ch/publications