Representing Pasts – Visioning Futures

Abstract

This contribution consists of a video (12 mins.) and a paper. Both will be presented; depending on the time, the video will be shown in excerpts and it will be accessible for free via the museum. The video: – presents the architecture of the Musée Visionnaire in ZH, https://www.museevisionnaire.ch/ – interviews the internationally renowned architect Trix Haussmann who designed the museum – and situates the museum as a social space. Created in 1969 and preserved in its original form down to the custom-made products such as the conical fire extinguisher, the MV is a place for Outsider Art. Outsiders are artists without any specific artistic training, traditionally social outsiders, some from psychiatric institutions; today the term includes street art, i.e. avant-garde art that questions established cultural values. Also, the museum was and is a meeting point for entire generations of non-mainstream artists who work in Zurich and also internationally, such as Harald Naegeli, the sprayer of Zurich, whom Bansky deems the world`s first graffiti artist. Still, the (respective) outsiders are dominant, including art of those on the margins of society. The museum is financed solely by philanthropic organizations and volunteer work – people come who identify with this space, create it and carry its tradition into the future. This social space, in the sense of the philosopher Henri Lefebvre, is captured. Aesthetically, the video situates itself partially in the avant-garde tradition of the city symphonies that presented space in novel, abstract ways, focusing on the tradition of Le Corbusier who influenced the architect in her first phase, e.g. abstract industrial details are shown. The budget was US 32.000; the filming, the cutting and the sound design was done professionally.