Virtual Verbier art summit: artistic reflections on a resource-hungry epoch

The Verbier Art Summit is an international platform for discourse in a non-transactional context. The non-profit summit connects thought leaders to key figures in the art world to generate innovative ideas and drive social change. The annual in-person event in Verbier, Switzerland, will not be held in January 2021 due to current health regulations: instead, talks and debates will take place on a virtual platform.

The theme of this year's edition is Resource Hungry: our cultured landscape and its ecological impact.

The 2021 summit speakers are invited by Jean-Paul Felley, the Summit’s Academic Director and director of the EDHEA, the Valais School of Art, and include the Swiss artist Claudia Comte, Professor Tom Battin and cultural leaders Hedy Graber and Madeleine Schuppli. These interdisciplinary speakers will offer their different perspectives on a resource-hungry epoch and reflect on how we can find a new way forward.

The virtual 2021 summit will also present some of its former speakers, featuring four international debates conceived by the summit’s Strategic Director Beatrix Ruf. These debates will kick-off from New York with a session moderated by Jessica Morgan, the summit’s 2020 partnering museum director of the Dia Art Foundation, who selected the Resource Hungry theme. Each debate will be concurrently livestreamed on social media and will include a live Q&A session on the 2021 summit days: 29 and 30 January. A themed art and ecology section will provide further inspiration by the summit speakers, partners and its international members, encouraging all participants to take action on this important ecological theme.

The accompanying publication Resource Hungry: Our Cultured Landscape and its Ecological Impact, edited by Jessica Morgan and Dorothea von Hantelmann, will be designed by Amsterdam-based artist Irma Boom.

Are you a Dutch or Netherlands-based artist taking part in international cultural collaborations online? Send us an email with detailed information and images, and we might highlight your work in the series Art in Times of Corona.

Check out the complete overview of Dutch cultural activities in Switzerland.