Culturescapes is a multidisciplinary Swiss arts festival devoted to inter-cultural exchange. The festival, which takes place in autumn, showcases the cultural landscape of a different region, nation or city every year. Although based in Basel the festival extends to many other places in Switzerland, such as Aarau, Bern, Chur, Zurich, Geneva or Bellinzona. Founded in the year 2002, the festival mainly focussed on Eastern European countries at the beginning. However, with festival editions devoted to countries like Turkey, Azerbaijan, China or Israel the festival gradually expanded its scope. To mark its tenth anniversary in 2012 Culturescapes focussed on Moscow, for the first time placing the topography of a city at the centre of the festival. The 2013 Balkans festival edition highlighted not only a country but an entire cultural region. 2015 Iceland was presented. At the same time was also announced that in the future the festival will take place in the biennial rhythm. The next edition will therefore be in 2017. Culturescapes is a network festival, cooperating with existing arts venues in Switzerland, such as the Theater Basel or the Museum Tinguely. The festival is usually supported by Swiss federal agencies, e.g. Pro Helvetia, county authorities as well as state departments of the guest country. The festival is interdisciplinary. Next to performing arts like theatre and dance the festival also presents fine arts, graphic arts, craft, literature, film and new Media. In the programming section entitled „Focus" the history, current affairs and popular culture of the focus region are discussed and analysed. This largely happens in cooperation with Swiss education institutions such as the University of Basel or the University of Zurich. Some of the countries and topics chosen have led to protests and debate. Such topics include the Armenian Genocide or the Conflicts in the Middle East. In a public letter, Culturescapes was requested by BDS Switzerland, a group advocating the boycott of Israel, not to host the Culturescapes Israel 2011 festival. The BDS Switzerland also protested at some of the events of the festival.
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Foundation
The original idea behind Culturescapes was to draw attention to the transformative processes taking place in the less well-known countries of the former Eastern Bloc, as manifested in the art produced there. Gradually, however, the focus shifted to cultural landscapes with a long tradition of artistic diversity, whose current form bears the stamp of a unique combination of historical, political, social and economic factors. Founder and curator of all the festival editions to date is Dutch arts manager Jurriaan Cooiman. Since 2009 Culturescapes functions as a charitable foundation. Before this date, the festival had been run by the group Performing Arts Services Basel (PASS).