Nestled in the heart of Geneva’s Old Town, the Museum of Art and History ranks among Switzerland’s largest museums. Boasting a collection of around 650,000 objects spanning applied arts, fine arts, and archaeology across five floors, the museum embraces a dynamic and innovative approach to showcase its treasures through unexpected exhibitions. Annually, it hosts approximately ten temporary exhibitions, frequently inviting contemporary artists to contribute. The museum organizes a variety of surprising events, including yoga classes in the galleries and after-work parties.
Conceived and performed by Claire Michel de Haas, this musical tour traces the evolution of music written for the human voice from ancient Greek fragments to contemporary repertoire. Vocal pieces converse with the collection, juxtaposed with harpsichord, cello and viola da gamba, and piano played by Réjane Buchet, Arbogaste Plantard and Johann Vacher. The programme blends historical timbres and intimate narration, creating a contemplative, tactile soundscape that invites close listening and reimagines the voice as both instrument and storyteller.
In French.
Presented within the exhibition Observatoires — Carte blanche à John M Armleder, this guided musical visit brings the soloists of Ensemble Contrechamps into dialogue with visual art. The performers weave fragile chamber textures and attentive listening into the exhibition space, transforming artworks through close sonic commentary. The programme blends composed fragments and spontaneous encounters, inviting a slow, sensory experience that highlights timbre, silence and spatial resonance.
In French.
An evening invitation to experience museums in unexpected ways, À vos marques, prêts? Musées! presents a programme that reimagines collection display and public encounter. Visitors encounter painting, sculpture, installation, photography and time-based media alongside talks, performances and guided perspectives that foreground hidden narratives and curatorial experimentation. The event explores how objects and display practices reveal histories, social tensions and personal stories, inviting reflection on what museums conserve, interpret and transform.
Julie Abbou-Brendel, art historian, and Victor Lopes, conservator-restorer, guide the session, combining art-historical insight with hands-on conservation expertise in the studio environment.
The visit examines conservation techniques for paintings, demonstrating cleaning, consolidation and preventive methods while discussing material challenges and ethical decisions. Participants observe workflows, learn how conservators assess condition and treatment options, and gain insight into the dialogue between preservation and interpretation.
In French.
Performed by Nazanin Noori and developed during a curatorial residency by Jade Meili Barget, this performance investigates presence, memory and the politics of gesture through a concentrated solo practice. The piece unfolds through attentive, tactile scores and restrained physicality, inviting close listening and embodied reflection. Lighting and sound sculpt shifting atmospheres that frame intimate gestures, while the work balances formal rigor with quiet emotional openness, leaving space for contemplation.
Geneva artists Serval (graffiti artist) and Kalonji (illustrator) present a collaborative encounter that foregrounds live creation and dialogue with exhibited works.
Combining graffiti and illustrative practices, they produce spontaneous drawings, interventions and sketches that respond to the visual and conceptual language of surrounding pieces. The project explores authorship, public versus institutional modes of making, and the exchange between street-based mark-making and narrative image-making. It reveals how processual gestures can reframe and question modes of display.
In French.
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