Traversing Topologies: Imagining worlds and knowledge with/through artistic research invites artists to explore ways in which the real experience of topologies can be matched, questioned, and productively reworked with the numerous versions of their abstraction and generalization. Topologies are far more than surfaces: they unlock the world as much as they order it. They are the basis for territorial battles, just as they open up spaces of imagination. The latter is a potential that numerous artists have worked with in recent years, for example in the form of alternative mappings.

The conference connects three linguistic regions, reveals geographical and disciplinary fringes and takes place both online and in real space. The events are planned at on-site locations and in the spaces in between; for example in the Gotthard region, the geographical hub between the coordinating art schools (édhéa in Valais, SUPSI in Ticino and HSLU in Lucerne), which serve as infrastructural hubs. Furthermore, an online platform hosts noncentric actions, walk-throughs, performances and interventions, which will be announced in advance, transmitted, documented and thus made virtually accessible in the long term.

“To conference” in the realm of artistic research means finding a way to get together, sharing experiences, approaches, methods, processes and results. As an experimental form of conferencing, "Traversing Topologies, Imagining worlds and knowledge with/through artistic research” is conceived with and through artistic research approaches and methods. Our aim is to provide a landscape to meet beyond the surface of standardised institutional and conference landscapes. We want to provide a form of exchange which lets us dive into deeper levels of artistic knowledge examination and production.

To facilitate a more process-driven approach, to do justice to the complex topic and to an organisational framework with intentionally challenging temporal, conceptual, and geographic conditions, the SARN to conference 2021 is structured as an event spanning between the one-day launch event on 25 September 2021 and the festival-like event on 13 and 14 May 2022.