December 1, 2025 | Boston
This month, Swissnex is launching the Planetary Embassy in Boston, transforming itself into an experimental space exploring and representing the interests of the more-than-human world. From December 2025 to May 2026, the Planetary Embassy will invite scientists, innovators, and artists to champion non-human interests through a series of conversations, performances, installations, film screenings, podcasts, and more.
The Planetary Embassy kicks off on December 3 with the opening night of the exhibition Planetary Visions, showcasing four works by young artists and thinkers reimagining how humans might collaborate with the planet—through empathy, care, and new forms of dialogue across species and ecosystems. The works presented in Boston were selected from over 100 projects submitted to Swissnex’s global open call Imagining Planetary Diplomacy. The exhibition will be available to view at the Swissnex office in Cambridge until May 2026. Other winning projects will be presented throughout the coming year at locations across the global Swissnex network.
Over the following six months, the Planetary Embassy will host a series of events exploring topics ranging from the life and death of glaciers to interspecies communication, and from endangered bird habitats in New England to space-based tools for planetary observation.
The Planetary Embassy in Boston marks the 25th anniversary of Swissnex in Boston, the world’s first science and technology consulate. At its founding in 2000, Swissnex was a radical experiment in diplomacy for the new millenium, built on a belief in the power of science and technology to foster democracy and shared prosperity. Unlike previous diplomatic missions, which conduct diplomacy at the state-to-state level, Swissnex connects researchers, entrepreneurs, and innovators, fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange at the institutional and individual level.
On December 5, in celebration of a quarter-century of pioneering diplomacy and the launch of the Planetary Embassy, Swissnex will welcome a high-level delegation of Swiss university and research leaders, led by Martina Hirayama, Switzerland’s State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation, for an invitation-only reception.
“With the Planetary Embassy, Swissnex is once again exploring a new form of diplomacy—a ‘planetary diplomacy’ that restores peace between humanity and Earth,” says Philippe Roesle, CEO and Consul at Swissnex in Boston and New York. “Science has revealed the extent to which we, as humans, are out of sync with the planet. The Planetary Embassy is a thought experiment in the future of diplomacy, with the aim of better understanding non-human interests, mediating these multitudinous perspectives, and developing solutions which will rebalance these relationships.” The Planetary Embassy in Boston is part of an initiative across the global Swissnex network, which has included pop-up Planetary Embassies at Climate Week NYC and at COP30 in Belém.