Global

Opening Night: Imagining Planetary Diplomacy

How can diplomacy, research, and cultural practice respond to environmental challenges that extend beyond human-centered frameworks? While presenting the exhibition projects, speakers from the fields of art, science, philosophy, and curatorial practice will explore how planetary dialogue can open new ways of listening, cooperation, and shared responsibility.

This opening event marks the launch of the Planetary Embassy in Japan. It brings together perspectives from art, science, philosophy, and curatorial practice to introduce the concept of planetary diplomacy and the broader objectives of the program. Through discussion and exchange, the event reflects on how planetary dialogue can help address environmental complexity, consider non-human actors and ecosystems in decision-making processes, and foster new forms of international and interdisciplinary engagement.

About the Exhibition

Imagining Planetary Diplomacy presents a selection of projects from the global open call “NextGen: Imagining Planetary Diplomacy,” launched in 2024 as part of the Swissnex for the Planet initiative. The open call invited young artists, researchers, innovators, and practitioners from around the world to imagine what planetary diplomacy could mean in a time of ecological change.

The selected projects explore diverse approaches to planetary dialogue, engaging with the more-than-human world through artistic research, speculative futures, and systems of care across species. During the opening night, exhibiting artists and contributors will introduce their projects and share the perspectives behind their work.

The evening will also feature a panel discussion with Yuko Hasegawa, former Director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art and Visiting Professor at Kyoto University, Yasuo Deguchi, Professor of Philosophy at Kyoto University, and contemporary artist Hanna Saito, followed by a networking reception. It sets the conceptual framework for the subsequent events of the Planetary Embassy, which will address biodiversity, planetary thinking, climate action, youth engagement, entrepreneurship, and circularity.

Program

  • 5:30pm – Doors open
  • 6:00pm – Welcome & introduction
  • 6:20pm – Presentations by exhibiting artists and contributors
  • 6:45pm – Panel discussion followed by Q&A
  • 7:30pm – Networking reception
  • 8:30pm – End of the event
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Event start time

  • Bern

    10:00AM

  • Geneva, Switzerland

    Timezone error (Asia/Tokyo)

  • California

    1:00AM

  • Brazil

    6:00AM

  • Houston

    3:00AM

  • Switzerland + San Francisco

    1:00AM

  • South Korea

    Timezone error (Asia/Tokyo)

  • Boston

    4:00AM

  • Brazil

    6:00AM

  • China

    5:00PM

  • Global

    10:00AM

  • India

    2:30PM

  • Israel

    9:00AM

  • Japan

    6:00PM

  • New York

    4:00AM

  • San Francisco

    1:00AM

  • Switzerland

    10:00AM

  • UK

    9:00AM

  • USA

    4:00AM

Presentations

  •

    Bio

    Uryssé Kuikuro (online)

    Student, University of Campinas

    Uryssé is a young indigenous leader of the Kuikuro people from Afukuri, in the Xingú indigenous territory in Mato Grosso (Brazil). He is a rapper, poet, slammer, writer, and has an indigenous rap group called Nativos MC’s. He studies language and literature at the State University of Campinas.

  •

    Bio

    Alekin Martin dos Santos Pazini (online)

    Student, University of Campina

    Alekin is an activist for disabled people’s rights, enthusiastic about accessibility and conscious and sustainable fashion. Autistic and a musician, Alekin is majoring in Linguistics at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP).



  •

    Bio

    Iqra Bano (online)

    Experience Designer

    Iqra Bano is an Experience Designer interested in how people, technology, and the environment shape one another. Her work combines psychology, environmental studies, and interactive media to explore new ways of seeing and relating to the world around us.



  •

    Bio

    Sulamith Tamborriello

    Student, Zurich University of the Arts

    Sulamith Tamborriello’s artistic practice revolves around intersections where ecological
    crisis, climate justice, and political participation meet. Working with transdisciplinary research and collective action, she creates demonstrations, participatory exhibitions, that often give rise to artistic objects serving as catalysts for further dialogue. Her work seeks to connect human and non-human forms of life through living processes of care. She currently lives, studies, and works in Zurich.

  •

    Bio

    Yelyzaveta Bezzub

    Student, University of Neuchâtel

    Yelyzaveta Bezzub was born in Ukraine and is currently studying Art History in Switzerland at the University of Neuchâtel. She works at the intersection of art, culture, and research, with experience in exhibition projects, creative coordination, and fundraising. Her interests include interdisciplinary practices, contemporary cinema, and visual culture, with a focus on developing ideas and turning them into meaningful cultural projects.

Panel discussion

  •

    Bio

    Yuko Hasegawa

    Curator

    Visiting Professor at Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University, in “Curatorial Theory and Practice”; Program Director of Art & Design at the International House of Japan; Honorary Professor at Tokyo University of the Arts; and Former Director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.
    She has been honored with the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Award (2020), the Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France, 2015), the Order of Cultural Merit (Brazil, 2017), and the Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France, 2024).
    Hasegawa has curated numerous biennales in Istanbul (2001), Shanghai (2002), São Paulo (2010), Sharjah (2013), Moscow (2017), and Thailand (2021), and international exhibitions including Japanorama: A New Vision on Art Since 1970 at the Centre Pompidou-Metz (2017), and Fukami: A Plunge into Japanese Aesthetics in Paris (2018). Her publications include Art and New Ecology: Anthropocene as Dithering Time (Ibun-sha, 2022); Japanorama: Un Archipel en Perpétuel Changement (Centre Pompidou-Metz Éditions, 2017); and Performativity in the Work of Female Japanese Artists in the 1950s–1960s and the 1990s (Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, 2010).

  •

    Bio

    Prof. Yasuo Deguchi

    Dean and Professor of Philosophy of Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University

    Born in 1962. Graduated from and completed a doctoral program at the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University. Ph.D. in Letters. His research fields include modern and contemporary Western philosophy and analytic Asian philosophy.

  •

    Bio

    Hanna Saito

    Assistant Professor, Toyo university

    Contemporary artist, born in 1988. After graduating from the Glass Course in Crafts at Tama Art University, she joined the biological art platform metaPhorest and began working with living materials.
    Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information Sciences and Arts at Toyo University since 2025, and doctoral candidate at The University of Tokyo (Kakehi Lab).
    She collaborates with true slime moulds as nonhuman agents, exploring creativity as an emergent process across interacting systems.

  •

    Bio

    Fiammetta Pennisi (moderator)

    Head of Art-Science and Deputy CEO, Swissnex in Japan

    With a background in architecture from ETH Zürich and the University of Tokyo, Fiammetta previously worked at Takenaka Corporation and interned at Kengo Kuma & Associates. With her broad multicultural background, she brings over four years of experience bridging art and science between Switzerland and Japan.

Partners

  • Swissnex
  • Presence Switzerland

Full Program

Contact

    Project Lead

    Fiammetta Pennisi

    Head of Art-Science

    Media Contact

    Alice Rouaud

    Head of Communications
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