Don’t miss out: Events running for less than two weeks
Presented by Antigel Festival, Anna von Hausswolff transforms organ and voice into a monumental, cathedral-like soundscape. Her magnetic presence blends gothic fervour and dark rock vertigo, where sacred solemnity meets obscure trance. The performance unfolds as ritual, with thunderous organ textures and a voice that soars from whisper to roar, creating immersive sonic catharses. Sparse electronic and resonant tones sculpt tense atmospheres, guiding listeners through hypnotic passages and intense emotional release.
Véronique Déthiollaz and Guy Schibler present a dialogue between drawing and photography that confronts mortality through laughter, desire and celebration. Déthiollaz’s graphite, occasional pastel and ink drawings deploy ironic, grotesque figuration—mocking skeletons and humbled reapers—while Schibler’s photographic series documents funerary sculpture and cemetery vistas that reveal provocative sensuality. Together the works probe how humour, eroticism and festivity resist oblivion, refusing pain through visual excess and theatricality, and interrogate cultural attitudes toward death, embodiment and memory.
In early January 2022, two construction vehicles belonging to a Swiss multinational were set on fire at a gravel pit in the Geneva countryside. Over a year later, a young man — referred to as Jérémy — was arrested and suspected of involvement in the arson. Held in pre-trial detention, he was released after more than three months, following strong public support and mobilization.
On Season 25–26, Christoph Grab’s SHAPE & FORM ensemble sculpts music that breathes, born of motifs and intervals and full of sudden changes. Without fixed chords, a linear, wandering harmony carries collective improvisation: alto and tenor saxophones (Christoph Grab), trumpet (Lina Allemano), piano (Matthieu Mazué), double bass (Christian Weber) and drums (Dieter Ulrich). Between jazz, contemporary-classical colours and pulsating rhythms, the group builds a dense, open sound space where structure and spontaneity evolve in equal measure.
Under the direction of conductor Liu Cha, the China National Traditional Orchestra presents a program that spans orchestral suites and intimate concertos. Soloists Li Chao (erhu), Zhang Jiali (guanzi) and Dong Xiaolin (pipa) bring virtuosic lyricism to works by Liu Tianhua, Tan Dun and Guo Wenjing, among others. Textures shift between shimmering plucked strings, piercing wind colors and resonant percussion, creating a ritual, cinematic sound world. The evening traces tradition and modernity through instrumental dialogue and vivid sonic contrasts.
The company Chantal et Bernadette explores, with both naïveté and documentary precision, the foundations and challenges of the education system through the story of Kévin, who feels let down by it. By merging scientific inquiry with theatrical expression, they engage the audience’s critical thinking. This production is a collaborative creation by Arnaud Hoedt, Jérôme Piron, Antoine Defoort, and Clément Thirion, developed in close partnership with researchers, with special attention to set design and technical aspects.
In French.
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Events running for an extended period
Ghislaine Heger presents a photographic series of portraits that foreground 101 women from French-speaking Switzerland and their experiences of ageing and gray hair. Combining portrait photography with each subject’s own testimony, the work examines social expectations, gendered scrutiny and the intimate moments that surround a visible change.
The exhibition evokes questions of identity, dignity and resilience, offering nuanced, gentle accounts that reveal how personal histories intersect with broader cultural attitudes toward ageing.
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum presents the Prix Art Humanité, featuring works by five HEAD – Genève alumni exploring themes of sharing, engagement, and humanity. The exhibition also includes the first International Prize, by Lebanese artist Mohamad Khamis. Visitors can vote for their favourite project, with the Public Prize awarded during the ceremony.
Niels Hung, a graduate of HEAD–Genève, investigates his multicultural identity through painting shaped by American and Asian visual cultures. His works—repainted canvases and mixed-format paintings—often reappropriate images found online and in the street, interrogating contemporary image production and its slipperiness. Employing layered pictorial strategies and referential iconography, Hung stages a critical dialogue that oscillates between fascination and critique. He also joined the Work.Master teaching team in 2024 and engages with questions of artistic production and the artist’s condition.
Explore the life and work of Voltaire, concentrating on his formative years in Geneva when he produced key Enlightenment writings such as Candide. The presentation examines his intellectual methods, satirical strategies, and themes of exile, travel and religious critique. It investigates how local experiences influenced his literary production and political thought, revealing the links between personal circumstance and broader eighteenth-century debates about reason, tolerance and public engagement.
In French.
British artist Cornelia Parker is renowned for transforming everyday objects through destruction and alteration, exploring the physical, cultural, and emotional life of materials. Her new exhibition Colour Problems at Wilde Gallery continues this exploration, presenting works that question material transformation, history, and perception while revealing the hidden potential in the ordinary.
Opening during the Nuit des Bains, Thursday 22 January, from 18:00
The International Museum of the Red Cross and Red Crescent presents the first European solo exhibition of Guatemalan Maya Kaqchikel artist Angélica Serech (*1982). Pach’un Q’ijul (Temps entrelacés – Deep Time) intertwines ancestral weaving gestures with personal and collective memory, drawing on Serech’s history shaped by Guatemala’s civil war. Using self-built looms and natural materials like corn husks and branches, her works explore resilience, repair, and the deep ties between textile traditions and humanitarian action.
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