Switzerland 2026

Title: The Unfinished Business of Living Together
Commissioner: Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia: Katharina Brandl, Sandi Paucic, Rachele Giudici Legittimo
Curators: Gianmaria Andreetta, Luca Beeler, Nina Wakeford
Exhibitors: Miriam Laura Leonardi, Lithic Alliance, Yul Tomatala, Nina Wakeford

The project examines coexistence as both a social promise and a contested form, using art to reopen the archive as a site of active engagement.

The exhibition takes as its starting point the 1978 Swiss television programme “Telearena” and the 1984 talk show “Agora”, which featured some of the first mainstream public debates on homosexuality in Switzerland. These broadcasts used live sketches to stimulate studio debate and encourage audience participation.
For the artistic team, the challenges of living together remain unresolved as social change competes against established norms and institutionalised exclusion. Within this framework, homosexuality serves as a specific entry point to examine how social norms determine who is heard.

Through montage and installation, the exhibition re-enacts the formal mechanisms of television talk shows to question media infrastructures and the authority of the archive. The collaborative work explores how voices and perspectives are shared and reconfigured, questioning to whom the past belongs.