Agenda - sinokultur

In our event calendar you will find current cultural events related to Chinese culture in Switzerland. We are thankful for your tips regarding interesting events.
Please send your information to info@sinokultur.ch.

The Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne is holding its first solo show of collage works by Chinese artist DING LIREN from June 13 - October 26.

The artist Ding Liren will be present for the opening of his exhibition at the Collection de l'Art Brut on 12 June at 6.30pm.

Ding Liren was born in 1930 and grew up in a rural area of Jiangsu province in eastern China. At the age of five, he developed a passion for insects, especially grasshoppers, mosquitoes, bees, butterflies, dragonflies and locusts. He would spend time observing the way they flew and listening intently to their calls, buzzes and whistles. He and his school friends also hunted for beetles and made little wooden shelters for them.

Ding’s curiosity for nature led him to study biology, although he harboured an obvious interest in fine art. In the late 1950s, he joined an entomology research centre, where he devoted his time to painting insects. Insect painting is a fully fledged genre of traditional Chinese art: entomology labs commonly hire artists to produce scientifically accurate depictions of insects, and the resulting works may be displayed in natural history museums. Ding spent several years producing standardised, naturalistic paintings of dried specimens, working eight hours a day.

Ding later taught decorative arts: first at a school in Shanghai, and then at a university in Guangdong. When he retired, he reconnected with his first love: insects. He no longer seeks to reproduce them faithfully, but instead to capture their movements and their vital energy. He uses collage, a technique he taught himself, as his medium of expression, working with illustrations and advertising images cut out from magazines.

The 39 works on display at the Collection de l’Art Brut, all on loan from the artist, depict beetles and grasshoppers. Their varied forms, postures and colours reflect the distinctive features of each subject.

Opening: Thursday, June 12, 2025, 6:30pm 

Location: Collection de l'Art Brut, 11, av. des Bergières , Lausanne

The Swiss artist Valentin Rilliet is excited to invite you to his first exhibition in Paris with Galerie Peter Kilchmann. The solo show "The Dream Synopsis" will be open from May 24th to July 19th.

Raised in Geneva by a Chinese mother and a Swiss father, Rilliet’s work is deeply informed by a bicultural identity, which he neither simplifies nor resolves but rather uses as a creative and driving tension in his practice. 

"The Dream Synopsis" is Valentin’s first exhibition in Paris. The exhibition’s title refers to his approach to creating his recent works through a more open, associative, or dreamlike perspective, moving away from the site- and source-specific themes that characterized his previous series. In these new oil paintings and works on paper, the artist opens the narrative field of his practice, playfully creating a unique mythology through which he continues to develop his visual language.

There are ten paintings on canvas and nine works on paper presented in the exhibition. Each piece contains a magic realist vision, uniquely composed and skillfully balanced. Central to each painting is a figure, usually in motion, that animates a distinct scenario. These figures often serve as protagonists within mysterious or ambiguous scenes that obscure the line between memory and imagination. 

A particularly experimental aspect of his new series was his application of Tibetan paper, ordered from Lhasa. The paper, thick and durable like scrolls for sacred texts and archival literature, is traditionally made from Daphne bush bark that makes it poisonous to insects, preserving it from decay. 

Valentin Rilliet (b.1996, Geneva, Switzerland), lives and works in Geneva. In 2023, he graduated from ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts) with an MFA in Fine Arts and graduated with a BFA in Fine Arts from The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, UK, in 2020. Text: Courtesy of @galeriepeterkilchmann 

Artist talk with art critic and curator @mariemaertens Sat, May 24, 5pm

Location: Galerie Peter Kilchmann Paris, 11-13, Rue des Arquebusiers, 75003 Paris

Galerie Urs Meile is very excited to invite you to the opening of it's second gallery space in Zurich at the new location Ankerstrasse 3 on Friday, June 13th from 6-9pm.

Galerie Urs Meile opens its new Zurich headquarters with "Anker Protocol – 1.0", the first edition of a recurring exhibition series that offers expansive insights into the gallery’s program and wider curatorial perspectives. Emphasizing dialogue across generations, cultures, and disciplines, the format reflects the gallery’s ongoing commitment to artistic curiosity and exchange. 

Artists: Antonio Ballester Moreno, Cao Yu, Klodin Erb, Hu Qingyan, Urs Lüthi, Miao Miao, Rosalind Nashashibi, Shao Fan, Rebekka Steiger, and Alice Wang.

Founded in 1992 in Lucerne, Galerie Urs Meile has cultivated a distinctive position over the past three decades, deriving its significance from a steadfast commitment to fostering contemporary art in China and Europe and facilitating meaningful exchanges between the two. As one of the first Western galleries to enter China, Galerie Urs Meile began its activities there in 1995 and has maintained a permanent space in Beijing since 2005, now led by René Meile. 

Since 2020, under the directorship of Karin Seiz-Meile, the gallery has broadened its Swiss presence through an exhibition space in Ardez, in the Engadin region. In 2023, it opened a permanent exhibition space on Rämistrasse in Zurich—a move that laid the foundation for deeper connections within the city’s vibrant and internationally engaged art ecosystem.

The new Ankerstrasse space offers a flexible, adaptive architectural approach: the fluid layout allows for reconfiguration and subdivision, supporting diverse exhibition formats—from intimate presentations to multi-part installations. The gallery envisions Ankerstrasse as an evolving platform where artistic inquiry expands through collective dialogue, fostering experimental, interdisciplinary, and cross-cultural practices.

Date: Friday, June 13th, 2025 from 6-9pm

Location: Galerie Urs Meile, Ankerstrasse 3, 8004 Zurich

Trigon Film is showing the Chinese film BLACK DOG (2024) by Guan Hu in Swiss cinemas. 

After his release from prison, Lang returns to his hometown on the edge of the Gobi Desert. As part of a dog patrol tasked with clearing the town of stray dogs ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games, he forms an unexpected friendship with a greyhound. Director Guan Hu has created a visually stunning work between western and neo-noir, with laconic humor and characterized by the social realism of Jia Zhangke, who shines in a supporting role alongside superstar Eddie Peng.

Guan Hu, born in Beijing in 1968, is not only considered one of the most influential film directors and screenwriters in contemporary Chinese cinema. He graduated from the Beijing Film Academy and, like Jia Zhangke, belongs to the so-called “Sixth Generation”, a movement of filmmakers characterized by a realistic, often gloomy view of modern China.

Cannes 2024: Prix Un Certain Regard

Playing @riffraff.houdini in Zurich and other cinemas in Switzerland.

Duration: 110 Min.
Language: Mandarin/d/f
Actors: Eddie Peng (Lang), Liya Tong (Grape), Jia Zhangke (Uncle Yao), Yi Zhang (Manager), You Zhou (Nie), Xin (black dog)

For tickets click here: https://www.riffraff-houdini.ch/de-ch/film/black-dog.html

The Fondation Baur Geneva would like to invite you to the exhibition "Femmes Chinoises" (Chinese Women).

The exhibition 女 Chinese Women delves into various aspects of the lives of women in Chinese culture, evoking through a selection of poems written by women the tensions inherent in their status. The visit begins with a presentation of their traditional depiction in art, from the evolution of beauty standards embodied by funerary figurines of the Tang dynasty (618-907) to the hieratic portrait of an elderly lady of the Qing (1644-1911), an anonymous witness to ancestor worship in China. Beyond the country’s borders, a certain image of the Chinese woman reached Europe through export porcelain, and spread there as an idealised model in the Chinoiserie of Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) and François Boucher (1703-1770).

The second section is centred on a magnificent wedding bed of carved and gilded wood, symbolising that crucial moment in a person’s life that represents marriage. In a centuries-old patriarchal society, numerous decorative motifs relate to marital bliss, fertility, and the desire for male offspring. The importance of marriage, whether experienced as an obligation or as a happy union, is widely echoed in literature, notably through the well-known classic Story of the West Chamber (Xixiang ji 西廂記), frequently illustrated on ceramics.

A third section explores women's ornaments and attire, but also deals with the painful practice of foot binding, a form of mutilation considered a status symbol and a mark of feminine beauty. 

The fourth part is dedicated to female deities who provide special protection to women and children, as well as popular beliefs related to childbirth. The exhibition closes with the works of several women painters from the Ming period (1368-1644) to the present day. Dong Xiaowan 董小宛 (1625-1651), the Empress Dowager Cixi 慈禧 (1835-1908), Ling Shuhua 凌書華 (1900-1990), as well as the artist Peng Wei 彭薇 (born in 1974), each tell, in their own manner, a tale about the status of women.

Location: Baur Foundation, 8 rue Munier-Romilly, 1206 Geneva

Dates: April 16 - July 20

For more info click here: https://fondation-baur.ch/en/expositions/chinese-women

Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist will open her exhibition "Your Palm is My Universe" at the Center for Contemporary Art UCCA in Beijing on July, 19th 2025.

In a solo exhibition centered on newly commissioned video installation works, internationally acclaimed Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist takes on the spatial dynamics of UCCA’s Great Hall. These creations further expand Rist's pioneering and incisive visual lexicon, seamlessly integrating her enduring ecofeminist perspectives with Taoist philosophical reflections on nature and the interconnectedness of all life. 

The exhibition invites viewers to shift fluidly between intimate microcosms and sweeping macro-perspectives, exploring cycles of ongoing transformation that govern bodily mechanisms, food consumption, digestion, and cultivation within today’s complex ecosystems. A dynamic journey into Rist’s “Total Art,” this exhibition encompasses video, installation, and sculpture in a profound sensory experience.

Rist will present a large-scale, site-specific commission for the Great Hall fully engaging UCCA’s striking public and exhibition spaces with a humorous and immersive experience welcoming audiences of all ages and backgrounds into the vibrant world of Rist’s art. In addition, a concise selection of her most emblematic works will flank the commission. This exhibition is curated by UCCA Curator Yan Fang. 

Pipilotti Rist (b. 1962, Grabs, Switzerland; lives and works in Zurich) studied commercial art, illustration, and photography at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna from 1982 to 1986. She furthered her studies with audio visual communications (video) at the School of Design in Basel. Since the mid-1980s, Rist has been exhibiting her work worldwide and became a central figure within the international art scene. 

Date: 19. July to 19. Oktober 2025

Location: UCCA Beijing, 798 Art District, No. 4 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang District

On Friday, August 22, 2025 at 6:30 PM, sinokultur invites you to our Salon "Form is Void, Void is Form" with Swiss-Chinese architect Mulan Sun.

Water, dwelling, and spiritual spaces have been the main themes of Mulan Sun’s research and practice in recent years. In this talk, she will present her residential and teahouse projects, as well as the historical and theoretical research that underpins them. Through this, she seeks to answer the question: How can we create intangible/infinite spirituality through tangible/finite architecture?

Mulan Sun was born and raised in China. In 2005, she came to Switzerland to pursue a Master’s degree in Architecture at ETH Zurich. Since 2015, she has been the founder and partner of SML Architektur GmbH. Mulan has taught at ETH Zurich, Tianjin University, and, since 2020, at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. She is also a tea master, founding member of the ETH Circle, and president of the Swiss-Chinese Chamber of Architects and Artists (SCAA).

After the talk and Q&A we will enjoy a tasty Apéro together and exchange our ideas and impressions.

The talk will be held in English.

Location: sinokultur, Klosbachstrasse 109, 8032 Zürich

For tickets click here