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The collection of the Lucerne Museum of Art is focused on Swiss art from the Renaissance to the present. Meret Oppenheim (1913-1985), today considered Switzerland’s most important 20th-century artist and its most vital contributor to Surrealism, had already been present in the collection with two works. In addition, the museum has now aquired the 1978 piece «Sechs Urtierchen und ein Meerschneckenhaus» (Six primordial animals and a sea snail shell), thus adding a sculpture alongside the artist’s two-dimensional works. Consisting of seven painted, glazed clay objects, this sculpture group is the first work Oppenheim created with such materials. Animals, the sea and archetypes are recurring motifs in her work.

Visual Arts: The purchase of the artwork was supported with a contribution of CHF 20,000.

Moon horns are artefacts from the Late Bronze Age – 1300 to 800 BC. They have been found throughout Central Europe. Since the horns were first discovered in Switzerland in 1851, archaeologists and cultural historians have been obsessed by the meaning and purpose of these puzzling discoveries. Cultural anthropologist Dr Kurt Derungs’s well-researched and richly illustrated monograph on the moon horns is the first of its kind. The book examines several theories and interpretations, presents numerous findings from Switzerland and provides insights into research on the moon horns. The book was published in November 2022. 

Heritage Conservation & Archaeology: Research and preparation for the publication was supported with a contribution of CHF 14,000.

Naima, 46 years old and originally from Venezuela, has lived in Basel for 18 years. She begins training as a psychiatric nurse in an effort to better her situation after years of poverty. Her role-switching – mother, daughter, student, lover – picks up steam when her own mother from Caracas and her son, who is undergoing gender transition, move in with her, thus presenting her with fresh challenges. Director Anna Thommen follows Naima as she grows, from working at the canteen cash register to completing her training as a nurse, and works to be accepted as a full member of society.  

Film: Emilia Productions was supported with a grant of CHF 30,000 for the production of this documentary.

«Der grüne Heinrich» (Green Henry), is a major work by Swiss poet Gottfried Keller (1819-1890) and is considered a key text of 19th-century German-language prose – but is little known in French-speaking Switzerland and France. Older translations date from over 100 years ago and are rarely to be found in bookshops. Lionel Felchlin has translated works by Gottfried Keller, Friedlich Glauser, Peter von Matt and Lukas Bärfuss into French. His new translation of Keller’s «Green Henry», weighing in at over a thousand pages, will be published by Éditions Zoé at the end of 2024.

Literature: Lionel Felchlin received a work grant of CHF 10,000 for this translation.

Since 2005, the Ensemble Amaltea has been committed to contemporary music, regularly commissioning new works and playing concerts in Switzerland and across Europe. With its program «Alle Schiffe trieben ins Offene» (All ships drift into the open), the ensemble presented a world premier of a piece by Charles Uzor alongside works by Franz Schubert, Toru Takemitsu and Giacinto Scelsi. With his composition «Merrusch», Charles Uzor (born 1961, Nigeria) explores the «Sudokus for Cruises» poems by Astrid Kaminski, linking them with his own refugee experiences. The premiere took place in April 2023 as part of the Contrapunkt Festival in St. Gallen. 

Music: For the premiere of Charles Uzor’s composition, the ensemble received a project grant of CHF 8,000.

The research and public history project was initiated by the Democracy Education and Human Rights Competence Centre at St. Gallen University of Teacher Education and by the Mamlock Foundation in Berlin. It is being run in collaboration with Freie Universität Berlin and Charles University Prague. It explores the rescue operation of February 1945 in which 1,200 Jews from the Theresienstadt concentration camp arrived in St. Gallen by train. The focus is on the biographies and lives of these survivors, the majority of whom spent years in Swiss refugee camps and, due to the country’s prohibitive refugee policy, were rarely granted lasting asylum.

Humanities & Cultural Sciences: The project was funded with a contribution of CHF 15,000.

The future of mountain areas depends on their economic development. Beyond the creation of modern infrastructures, the challenge lies in developing sustainable narratives for the development prospects of the individual regions in their historically evolved uniqueness and spatial constellations. ILEA works at the intersection of creativity, ecology and economy. It seeks to significantly advance the development of these mountain regions and to establish a long-term international position as a centre for rural outlying education, research and cultural production.

Priority project: The �鶹�� Culture Foundation supported the development of the ILEA with a contribution of CHF 60,000.