Special Project Cultural Participation

Culture is there for everyone, and it should therefore be shaped by everyone. With the special project "Cultural Participation", the Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation supports cultural projects of associations, organizations and professional cultural workers in Switzerland in cooperation with lay people or different population groups. 

What we promote

We want to enable as many people as possible to engage with cultural forms of expression, to participate in cultural life and to play an active role in it. This is because joint creative processes strengthen equal opportunities and contribute to cultural diversity. Therefore the Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation supports projects in the field of cultural participation by associations, organizations or professional cultural workers in Switzerland in the fields of dance, theatre, music or visual arts. This includes initiatives by amateurs or various groups of the population in collaboration with professional cultural workers. We are interested in innovative approaches and open formats that generate new experiences, approaches and artistic questions. Projects should meet the following criteria:

  • They may have a maximum duration of 3 years.
  • They must be participation-oriented and participatory. This means that they should be (co-)created and produced as actively as possible by all participants.
  • They should encourage a respectful approach to culture and contribute to the appreciation of cultural diversity.

What we do not support

  • School projects or projects with school classes
  • Individuals
  • Organizational developments of institutions
  • Projects in which the groups involved merely implement the vision of professional cultural workers without being actively involved in the creative process.
  • Projects that deal only superficially with cultural participation and diversity ("tokenism").

Dates

Deadline for submission    No new applications can be submitted.
Decision of the Foundation Board March 18, 2024
Project start   from March 19, 2024

 

Contact

Project coordinator Agata Lawniczak will be happy to provide you with information.

Mail               teilhabe@johnsonstiftung.ch
Phone           +41 (0)79 307 37 47

 

 

Examples of already funded projects

Paul Klee. Menschen unter sich

What does community mean and what forms does it take? What are authority and power based on? The exhibition "Paul Klee. Menschen unter sich" presented Klee as a political artist and showed how his works often conceal a social or political dimension. As part of this thematic collection exhibition, an artistic collaboration with the inclusive dance company BewegGrund from Bern was created. Together with 33 participants, the choreographers Lucía Baumgartner and Susanne Schneider conceived six choreographies that entered into dialogue with Paul Klee's works as video installations. Inclusion was practiced in a natural way, without the topic of disability being an issue in the exhibition itself.

Les Promises

«Les Promises» was a performative and audiovisual work by the Unplush Company Bern under the artistic direction of choreographer Marion Zurbach. It functioned as an artistic collaboration between six teenage women living in the 15th and 16th districts of Marseille, artists, social workers and anthropologists. The project started in 2019 and continued until 2021 through the writing of a documentary film that retraced the creative work carried out during two years. The film «Les Promises» was written by several hands and conceived as a window into the lives of the female teenagers. The work is based on interviews, dance scenes and videos made by the paticipants with their smartphones. Through speculative scenarios, the performers staged real and imaginary stories, thus delivering their reflections on possible futures, terrifying or utopian, intimate and universal at the same time.

Metamorphosen

The play «Metamorphosen und wir ändern uns doch» by the collective Theater Frei_Raum was dedicated to the theme of change on a personal and social level. It was based on the mythological work "Metamorphoses" by Ovid. Theater Frei_Raum is a theatre ensemble with an inclusive cast, in which professional actors work together with participants with disabilities. All participants meet at eye level and create the play together. The collective has found its main venue in the Heitere Fahne in Bern. It is convinced that inclusive theatre work has the potential to democratize theatre as well as to trigger discussions about diversity in our society.

Musik für alle!

The association Enjalumja is committed to the inclusion of people with various disabilities and to a society in which diversity is seen as normal and enriching. With the project "Tabula Musica" they want to create a broad access to music and culture. The inclusive Tabula Musica Orchestra performed together with the Biel Solothurn Symphony Orchestra. This also resulted in a unique concert film, which makes the collaboration between these two orchestras visible and audible in an impressive way. It shows that inclusion in high art is not only possible, but also brings great added value.

Sweet&Sour

«Sweet&Sour - zwischen Verrichtungsbox und Dirty Laundry» is a documentary theatre piece about sex work and migration in Switzerland and uses object theater to shed light on the situation of sex workers. The project was conceived both artistically and socially: The sex workers were involved in the creative process in diverse aspects. Using short films, songs, puppetry and dance choreography, «Sweet&Sour» made the women's fates visible in a playful way. The documentary theatre piece was a co-production with the Kulturmarkt Zürich Wiedikon and the Schlachthaus Theater Bern.