Art & Energy

The conviction that an arts school can be a pedagogical nexus dedicated to the transmission of knowledge, experimentation, and research.

If you immerse yourself at Lake Zurich, a hedge-fund office, a botanical garden, or a land-art piece built on ruins, is it possible to discern an energy particular to art? Art as a form of energy capable of encompassing the whole of life, more powerful than finance and its algorithms? Art as science or speculative fiction? We dwell in castles with Schrödinger's cat until we give form to the formless: molecules and failed soldiers, art spaces previously owned by the mafia. We share tips about the tricks of the trade--only to intervene, emancipate, culminate, collapse, and (re)emerge. Let us look everywhere for ideas, and let us be gloriously out of touch: may we grow our capacity and courage to love. Catastrophism, miniskirt, particle.

This book arises from the activities of the MA Fine Arts program at the Zurich University of the Arts in 2019. It reflects the conviction that an arts school can be a pedagogical nexus dedicated to the transmission of knowledge, experimentation, and research as much as a locus for civic and critical debate and exhibition, involved in its community, locally and globally.

Donatella Bernardi is a multidisciplinary artist, academic, and manager in the field of art education. Her artistic practice is complemented by her scholarly research and teaching, spanning installations, publications, films, essays and curated exhibitions. She places particular emphasis on questions of power and power dynamics, gender, postcolonialism, intersectionality, as well as capitalism and rigorous critiques thereof.