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Passages - The Cultural Magazine of Pro Helvetia
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Passages/Passagen Number 37 Autumn 2004
swixx
Switzerland's Cultural Worlds
Editorial
Switzerland has always represented a unique mix, an amalgamation of more than four cultures, divided and united by obstinacy and openness. An intersection of winding paths that often originate from regions far remoter than we suspect. From a cultural standpoint, the frontiers between the country’s inner diversity and globe-spanning roots have long been blurred. Migrants and artists would be particularly eloquent in telling us about transitions rude and fluid, and about thriving, or just surviving, in a permanent Elsewhere. Be it out of necessity or choice. The very name of the artist whose video stills run through the following pages speaks volumes: Ingrid Paula del Carmen Wildi Merino. This issue of Passages kicks off Pro Helvetia’s two-year programme SWIXX. The subtitle, Switzerland’s Cultural Worlds, reflects the Arts Council’s desire to sharpen perspectives on contemporary work being done in music, the theatre, literature, dance, the visual arts and the culture of everyday life – in recognition of the fact that, the longer the more, this work owes its existence to the encounters and wide-ranging artistic input of individuals of very diverse origin.
While some pay tribute to the “dance of cultures” in the global village and welcome liberation from the false myths of origin so easily co-opted for political purposes, others speak of the emergence of a new arbitrariness. There is no question: as the horizons of cultural citizens of the world expand, the blind spot in their – our! – eye grows as well.
With this in mind, the SWIXX issue of Passages trains the spotlight on the cultural crossings and nerve centres that provide impulses for creative forms of living and artistic works and existences. The resulting panorama reveals that art and cultural exchange do not live on artistic and political far-sightedness alone: they begin where unprejudiced interplay typifies day-to-day life.
The Editors
