Aligned with the Swiss Pavilion’s three core themes – Augmented Human, Life, and Planet – “BACK IN THE FUTURE / FORWARD IN THE FUTURE” addresses speculative narratives and the role of arts in anticipating the future. Students from Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD) worked in small mixed groups between January and June 2025, utilizing various media and forms of expression to create artistic representations and animations that bring futuristic scenarios of our society to life.
the weather is WHAT?? – weather forecast of Switzerland, February 10, 2031 – by MeteoSwiss: Gal Abramovich
After Memory – Verified by DataSafe: Yannic Bründler
Virtual Dreams: Helen Allemand, Chloé Jaquet, Malik Karali
Without Title: Anaïs Hofstetter, Candice Perrenoud, Nathan Darbellay
Percolations: Suejin Hong, Noémie Rubio Meau
Curators:
Swetlana Heger-Davis, Director Department of Fine Arts, ZHdK
Frank Westermeyer, Head of Information Fiction, Visual Arts, HEAD – Geneva and Coordinator of HEAD’s teaching at EPFL
Exhibitors
Dream Maiden
Joela Vogel
Student, ZHdK
Joela Vogel (b.1999, Zurich, Switzerland) explores in her practice Post-Internet aesthetics, contemporary discourses on the body, and the mediated and digital constructions of femininity, modern love and sexuality. Her experimental, interdisciplinary approach, working primarily through performance, allows her to engage with text, sound and video.
Dream Maiden
Thilda Bourqui
Student, ZHdK
Thilda Bourqui is a Zürich-based artist whose practice investigates themes of consumption, desire, and their intersections with media, institutions, and the occult. Drawing on her background in graphic design, she combines text and video by exploring digital collage techniques. Bourqui’s material approach often involves fragile crafts and everyday objects, reflecting the delicate yet pervasive nature of the issues she examines. By blending digital and physical elements, her work invites viewers to consider the interlaced space between personal experience, pop and internet culture, and broader societal structures.
Photo by Binta Kopp
I Want The Images I Dreamt Of
Xafya Lovecraft
Student, ZHdK
XafyaLovecraft (b. 2001, Zurich, Switzerland) is a painter, composer, filmmaker, and installation artist. Her practice, rooted in music, explores identity, intimacy, and collective experience through fragmented materials and layered soundscapes. Extending across painting, sculpture, and moving image, her work merges digital culture with sacred motifs. She investigates how materials and sound carry memory, reframing faith and alienation in contemporary life. Her practice functions as both research and ritual, mapping fleeting connections in post-digital worlds.
Empty Streams Carving out Canyons
Rubén Gil
Student, ZHdK
Rubén Gil (b. 2000, Lausanne, Switzerland) is a multidisciplinary artist and BA Fine Arts student at ZHdK. His practice encompasses sculpture, installation, performance, sound, and video. Central to his work is an exploration of the tensions and paradoxes within human society and the natural world. Acting as a catalyst for dialogue and interaction, his works invite audiences to confront and engage with themes such as technology, migration, and artificial intelligence
Photo by: Debsuddha
Empty Streams Carving out Canyons
Izaak Most
Izaak Most (b. 1998, London, UK) is a multidisciplinary student in arts with a background in social sciences. His practice spans photography, video, sound, and 3D work, often exploring the complex interplay between power dynamics and perception. Drawing from both critical theory and personal observation, their work examines how structures of influence shape experience and understanding. Through immersive and layered media, they investigate the tensions between what is seen, heard, and felt — and how these perceptions inform and distort social reality.
Empty Streams Carving out Canyons
Carla Plan
Student, HEAD
Carla Plan (b. 2003, Geneva, Switzerland) is a BA Fine Arts student at HEAD Geneva. Working mainly with video and photography, her practice explores the tensions within narratives imposed on women. She embodies sculptural and performative figures, reclaiming a gaze that resists objectification. With feminist theory and collective imagery as points of departure, her work unsettles normative expectations and frames discomfort as a mode of resistance.
Empty Streams Carving out Canyons
Inès Vallotton
Student, HEAD
Inès Vallotton (b. 2005, Geneva, Switzerland) is a multidisciplinary artist and student in the BA Fine Arts at HEAD. Her work moves across video, photography, collage, and sculpture, often rooted in a quiet contemplation of nature and time. Exploring the tension between the ancient and the future, her practice is meditative and poetic, blending visual language with written word. She draws inspiration from overlooked details, historical artifacts, and the forgotten fragments of the world.
the weather is WHAT?? – weather forecast of Switzerland, February 10, 2031 – by MeteoSwiss
Gal Abramovich
Student, ZHdK
gal (b. 2000, locarno, switzerland) combines his art in a very aware way. it’s a combination between videomaking, performance, painting, theatre, music, ai, or installation. being born in a clown’s family and doing physical theatre since a young age, gal uses (his) body and movement as storyteller and point of view. because of his influence from popular culture everyone can understand gal’s art and receive its message to create an accessible and fun artwork experience.
After Memory – Verified by DataSafe
Yannic Bründler
Student ZHdK
Yannic Bründler (b. 1998, Zurich, Switzerland) is a multidisciplinary artist and BA Fine Arts student at ZHdK. His practice explores perception, identity, and the fluid relationship between self and environment. Working with installation, photography, performance, and text, he creates spaces for reflection on presence, transformation, and the instability of meaning. His work invites viewers into open-ended dialogues about reality, collectivity, and perception as a transformative act.
Virtual Dreams
Helen Allemand
Student, HEAD
Helen Allemand (b. 2004, Castries, St.Lucia) is a student in the BA Fine Arts at HEAD – Geneva. Her practice encompasses audiovisual production, photography, sound and mixed media art. Inspired by the stories that surround us on the day to day, as well as personal insights into her multicultural upbringing, her work draws from everyday experiences, themes typically banalized by society, or slight twists on reality, with a goal of communicating and shedding light on different lived experiences.
Virtual Dreams
Chloé Jaquet
Student, HEAD
Chloé Jaquet (b. 2003. Neuchâtel, Switzerland) is a multidisciplinary artist and student in the BA Fine Arts at HEAD. Their practice focus on queer bodies and representation, through technical tools such as 3D, electronics, video etc. Their work blend digital and non-digital worlds together, to create tools and stories.
Virtual Dreams
Malik Karali
Student, HEAD
Malik Karali (b. 2004, Geneva) is a multidisciplinary artist and student in the BA Visuals Arts at HEAD working across drawing, writing, photography, video, animation, and painting. His work explores dreams, childhood, imagination, and existential themes through fiction and introspection. Inspired by his Algerian and Italian roots, his practice reflects a deep connection to ancestry and memory. He draws inspiration from the sea, ruins, the sun, and popular culture. His visual world is shaped by manga, Japanese animation, literature, the golden age of Italian cinema (1950s–70s), and rap music. Through a poetic and intuitive approach, he captures fleeting moments and emotional truths.
Without Title
Nathan Darbellay
Student, ZHdK
Nathan Darbellay (b. 2000, Zurich, Switzerland) is a multidisciplinary artist and a student in the BA Fine Arts program at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). Working primarily in installation, construction, and sculpture, his practice explores how systems of control shape desire, behaviour, and identity. Using mass-produced objects and popular imagery as metaphors, he takes an ironic and layered approach to examine the charged space between intimacy and social expectation.
Without Title
Anaïs Hofstetter
Without Title
Candice Perrenoud
Student, HEAD
Candice Ai May Perrenoud (b. 2005, Morges, Switzerland) is a multimedia bachelor Fine Arts student at HEAD-Geneva. Their work is almost always narrative, with a focus on fluids, the strange and the supernatural. These queer open ended stories are fashioned by and with those viewing/reading/playing them, taking the shape of an interactive video game for instance.
Percolations
Suejin Hong
Student, ZHdK
SueJin Hong (b.1997, Seoul) is an artist working across video, sound, and installation.
Her practice explores the entanglement of history, memory, and ecological crisis through poetic and research-based approaches. Her works have been presented at venues such as HITE Collection and Aram Nuri Art Center in Korea, as well as Helmhaus and Kunst(Zeug)Haus in Switzerland. She studied Fine Arts (BA) at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and is currently pursuing her MA in Fine Arts there.
Percolations
Noemy Rubio Meau
Student, HEAD
Noemy Rubio Meau (b. 2000, Paris, France) is a multidisciplinary artist and Visual Arts Master’s student at HEAD – Genève. Her work emerges from her own visual impairment and explores individual perception and collective memory. Through installation, video, textile, sound, and writing, she creates sensory environments that invite the audience to navigate a world beyond clarity, amplifying what is often unseen or unheard. Informed by Disability Studies, Crip technoscience, and sensory ecology, her practice challenges normative frameworks and foregrounds embodied, inclusive ways of sensing and knowing. Her work seeks to represent, give voice to, and celebrate marginalized narratives.
Curators
Bio
Prof. Swetlana Heger
Director Department of Fine Arts
Swetlana Heger is a visual artist and professor whose work focuses on Conceptual Art. Educated in Vienna and Tokyo, she has exhibited internationally at institutions such as Centre Pompidou, Hamburger Bahnhof, Moderna Museet, and the Venice Biennale. Her work is featured in major publications and collections worldwide. Since 2017, she has led the Department of Fine Arts at Zurich University of the Arts, also serving as chair of International Relationships since 2018.
Bio
Frank Westermeyer
Head of Information Fiction, Visual Arts, HEAD - Geneva and Coordinator of HEAD’s teaching at EPFL
Frank Westermeyer has taught at the SAIC of Chicago, and currently at HEAD – Geneva, where he leads the Information Fiction programme. As part of the artist duo Boisseau Westermeyer, his work has been shown at international exhibitions and festivals. His artistic research includes the project Playing at being Human (S. Boisseau and D. Zerbib, Naima Unlimited). His current work the «Hacking Body» explores how AI-generated video reshapes the role of the performer’s body in relation to the image.
Organized by
With the support of
Swissnex for the Planet
This exhibition is in collaboration with the Swissnex for the Planet initiative. From climate change to biodiversity loss, science has exposed deep fractures in the relationship between humans and the Earth. Swissnex for the Planet is an initiative to explore a new form of diplomacy focused on rebalancing human and nonhuman interests on this planet.