Agenda

Many European and American artists, writers and other celebrities lived, worked and died in Switzerland. One of them is Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926).

The exhibition is focused on the years he spent in Valais – from 1921 to 1926. It attempts to answer fundamental but far-reaching questions about the final years of his life.

What led Rilke to settle in Valais and why did he remain? What shape did Rilke’s connections take – to the landscape, to people, to nature, art, and architecture, to history and religion, to the economic and social realities of the time?

The multimedia exhibit introduces Rilke’s view on Valais through pictures, letters, books, and personal objects as well as a slide show and recorded poetry readings.

The new permanent exhibition (Chintz. How a Fabric Conquered the World), interweaves local and global history and considers Switzerland’s links to the wider world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

It sheds light on the involvement of many Swiss people and businesses in key chapters of the modern period, including industrialisation, trade, colonisation and slavery.

Traders in Geneva imported fabrics from India to sell in Bordeaux, from where they were sent on to Brazil. Merchants in Basel set up in Nantes to better fund and combine cargoes for the slave trade. Officers from Neuchâtel served the powerful Dutch East India Company. Swiss plantation owners or managers made use of slave labour. The printed cotton fabrics are regarded as the first product of globalisation.

The exhibition forms part of the new Chintz Centre.

Between the 17th and 19th centuries, printed cotton fabrics transformed Switzerland into one of the world’s leading textile-producing nations. the cotton products, along with weaving and spinning, played a key role in the country’s industrialisation and cemented its role in global trade.

An interactive map documents the various centres of manufacture in Switzerland in the 18th century.

The exhibition shows over 100 works by renowned female artists from the circle of friends of Ursi and Bernhard Luginbühl.

The show includes works by Niki de Saint-Phalle (1930-2002), Eva Aeppli (1925-2015), Lilly Keller (1929-2018), Sabina Hofkunst (1947), Florence Gilliéron (1954) and Ursi Luginbühl (1936-2017).

The tour of the exhibition begins in the lower part of the museum
with numerous original works by the sculptor and draughtsman Bernhard Luginbühl (1929-2011).

A different atmosphere is present on the upper floor. The works of the six women  impressively reflect their artistic’ feelings and thoughts as well as the diversity of materials.

The history museums of Geneva, Annecy, Chambéry, Suse, Aosta and Sion/Sitten in the territories of the former Earldom or Duchy of Savoy form a network for Medieval Art in the Alpine region. The network organises exhibitions and publications.

The Valais History Museum in Sion presents a new exhibition of medieval chests. The focus is on the craftsmanship and the (Romanesque and Gothic) characteristics of this unique collection.

The collection is unique because of its age (especially the pieces from the 13th century), its diversity (liturgical chests, archive chests, domestic chests, grain chests, among others) and quality.

Many of them were made for and on behalf of the bishop and the Basilica Valeria.

The exhibition (Valais à la une. Un siècle vu par les médias) highlights the Valais media and their work of the past hundred years.

The show aims to show the work of journalists and photojournalists through a century of events and reports of all kinds: opening of the Simplon tunnel, flooding of the Rhône, women’s right to vote, disasters and scandals, the Covid-19 pandemic and many other subjects.

Around a hundred journalists, reporters and photojournalists tell in words and 400 images how they practice their profession.

Biotechnology, artificial intelligence and digitalisation have given us unprecedented opportunities to perfect ourselves and create new inventions.

The speed of these developments is unparalleled in the history of humankind.

Dynamic technologies encounter a society, in which large sections know very little about these modern tools.

The museum launches an emotional examination (Super – the second Creation) of the subject matter in an experiment that combines the strengths of theatre and exhibition.

The Principality of Liechtenstein has undergone rapid change over the last 120 years: it has developed from a poor, largely agricultural country into a rich industrial and services nation.

This change can be clearly seen in the appearance of the villages. Their appearance at the beginning of the 20th century is documented on many postcards.

The exhibition “Liechtenstein then and now – historical picture postcards and current photos tell the story”( Liechtenstein damals und heute – Historische Ansichtskarten und aktuelle Fotos erzählen) shows selected postcards with motifs from all eleven municipalities, juxtaposed with the same photographic perspective of today’s situation.

The Great St. Bernard Pass and Hospice, the canons and the Saint Bernard rescue dog are closely linked both in history and in the images that carry the reputation of this mythical place far and wide as one of the compulsory passages linking north-west Europe to the Mediterranean.

The exhibition portrays a Large collection of old prints, showing the iconic sites of the Alpine crossing from Lake Geneva to Aosta, the Hospice, the canons and the dogs as well as the Napoleonic adventure in 1800.

Situations involving boundaries, borders and limits are commonplace. They are ambivalent–both a challenge and an opportunity, both danger and enrichment.

Beyond the visual narration of boundary and border crossings, the Bourbaki Panorama is also expanding the boundaries of perception as a medium, creating the optical illusion of a boundless expanse.

To commemorate the crossing of the border by the French Bourbaki Army 150 years ago, the Bourbaki Panorama Museum presents a voyage of discovery in the world of boundaries, borders and limits.

Inspired by the monumental circular painting, the museum offers encounters with and reflections on diverse, contemporary borderlines.

French and German texts are available.