February 15, 2020

Alina Baldini: Could you tell me about your art space?

nano: nano – Raum für Kunst emerged from the art space KunstRaum R57. Since the beginning of 2019, we—Maria Bill, Antonia Hersche, and Regula Weber—have taken over, creating the current new management team, a new name, a new logo, and a new concept.

AB: What is your concept and curating approach?

nano: nano - Raum für Kunst is an alternative and non-commercial platform for professional artists from local and national areas. We offer a place for multidisciplinary art projects and organize around five duo-exhibitions per year, and a collective annual exhibition.

Artists with different backgrounds are invited (always two at a time) to collaborate and create a common exhibition. An artistic exchange and process enables them to create a dialogue between their different artistic personalities (in terms of media, age, experience, and origin).

Each exhibition lasts two and a half weeks. We also have performances, music, and literary interventions during openings and closings.

AB: Who is your audience?

nano: Many people come through our newsletters, flyers, website, art platforms, Instagram, and word of mouth. It is rather difficult to get coverage through the press however. The exhibiting artists bring their own public as well. We have visitors of different generations and different backgrounds, artists, people with a cultural interest, visiting our exhibitions regularly.

AB: How are you connected to the Zurich art scene, and what is unique about what you do?

nano: We have a good network in Zurich, its area and Geneva (where one of us comes from) because we are artists ourselves.

The concept of showing duo-exhibitions and creating cultural projects connected to the neighborhood is our uniqueness. For example: from the 2nd to the 18^th of September 2020, nano - Raum für Kunst has invited nine artists, three authors and two musicians living in Wipkingen to work in conjunction with this neighbourhood and create an interactive exhibition covering different aspects in relation to the community. This cultural project is called WIP-KINGE, ein Klang aus dem Quartier.

AB: What are your backgrounds?

nano: We are artists living, working, and exhibiting in Zurich and elsewhere.

We manage nano - Raum für Kunst as curators but do not exhibit there.

AB: What is art for you?

nano: For us, it is about seeing things from a different perspective, with unique angles and views. It is also a way to share and interact with other people, other artists. It is a way of life. It permits us to express emotions, react to our environnement, tell a story, etc...

AB: What do you wish for the Zurich art scene?

nano: We wish for the Zurich art scene to continue to be open to different art forms, to promote cultural diversity and create cultural connections. It is important for us that Zürich continues to support off-spaces and artist run spaces, as they enrich the art scene and offer a complementary perspective to the more institutionalized venues.

We are concerned that the new regulations from Zurich city limiting financial support for off-spaces will put their existence at risk. We hope this position will be revisited if not amended.