The Department of Cultural Analysis focused on transcultural communication as part of the “Arts for Change” project. Three projects have contributed to understanding transculturality @home and abroad within the scope of the promotion of “Arts for Change”.
The project “QWAS – Migrating Dialogue” involves periodic artistic exchange between young artists from Switzerland and Kazakhstan. The exchange includes a nine-day train journey from Zurich to Almaty, preceded by a week-long workshop in Zurich. An exhibition in Almaty concludes the exchange. The project’s unique perspective is that it looks at the train as both a tool and a location – a third space, a platform not only for exchange but also for artistic interventions. It offers the possibility of exploring the passage through space, borders, time and contexts as it is itself an object of inquiry. The journey presents travellers with particular challenges, due to the limitations of both physical and personal space, and the need to adapt to a pre-defined rhythm and numerous encounters. By traversing the space between the two countries, students are invited to contextualize their own artistic perspectives on a range of research topics, such as migration, nomadism, mobility, identity politics, distance, mapping, borders, and language.