In Switzerland, a system of neutralization has long been at play, one that denies or downplays the country’s role in colonial violence and ongoing global exploitation. Against Neutrality! is a three-day collaborative artistic, ethnographic, and activist intervention that aims to deconstruct these processes and show Switzerland’s complicity in global economic and ecological violence.

A transdisciplinary group of artists, researchers, and students from the universities of Bern will open up their research archives on commodity trade, energy imperialism, and conservation, engaging with audiences as well as national and international guests. Through talks, screenings, workshops, and social gatherings within a multimodal archive space, the event will activate knowledges, affects, and relations necessary to inhabit and build transnational worlds of resistance and solidarity.

All events will be in English.
Admission to all events is free.

Project website of the University of Bern

PROGRAM FRIDAY
COMMODITY TRADE

6:30 PM Opening and Keynote by Prof. Stefan Leins (Uni Bern)
8:00 PM Screening “Voids in Earth” (2024, 40’) by Rami Msallam & conversation
10:00 PM Sounds & Party with Encoder Experiment at Grand Palais Bern

Against Neutrality! is opened by economic anthropologist Prof. Stefan Leins (Uni Bern) with the mini-keynote “A simple trading hub? On neutralizing complicity in Swiss global economies”, which is based on his rich ethnographic research on commodity trading, mining and finance.

The screening of the two-channel-video-investigation “Voids in Earth” (2024, 40’) by Rami Msallam then draws the audiences into a forensic analysis of gold traveling from Eritrea to Switzerland. In a discussion with actors from the Eritrean community and NGOs, Swiss complicity in geopolitical extractivism is critically mapped and debated.

Afterwards, sounds by the Malagasy sound artist Encoder Experiment (aka Antsa Arimalala) open a space for critical deep listening and shaking off neutrality.