The Curator Residency is an initiative launched by Asia Society Switzerland and Esther Heer-Zacek in 2021. Every two years a curator from Switzerland is embedded in an Asian art hub for three months, closely associated with a local art space, and supported in meeting artists, curators, and cultural practitioners from the city as well as the region. The residency also includes an additional research trip to a second city in Asia. 

In 2023 and 2024, the Asia Society Switzerland Curator Residency collaborated with TheCube Project Space in Taipei. The independent art space acted as a base as well as a catalyst into the Taipei art scene.

The Jury has selected Giada Olivotto as the Curator-in-Residence in Taipei. In 2024, she stayed in Taipei and traveled to Yunnan to learn more about Mosuo culture, a matriarchal community.

Curator-in-Residence

Giada Olivotto (1990, Locarno) is an independent curator based in Ticino. Since 2017 she has been co-director of the Sonnenstube off-space and co-funded in 2020 the sound exhibition space CANALE MILVA. Since 2021 Giada has been part of the artistic-curatorial duo Fattucchiere. Giada’s recent artistic and curatorial projects: Switch the witch, with Fattucchiere, larada (Locarno, CH); Sweet Dreams Foundation, with Fattucchiere (Nida Art Colony, Nida, LT); La casa ispirata, with Fattucchiere, Istituto Svizzero (Roma, IT); RACCONTO GROSSO, with Fattucchiere, Spazio Lateral (Roma, IT); Tamed love, a conversation with SARA RAVELLI (Schiavo-Zoppelli Gallery, Milan, IT); From Submersion to Subversion (PALAZZINA, Basel, CH); Plattform21, MASI (Lugano, CH); FOTOROMANZA, Le Commun (Geneva, CH); Une histoire d’amour, One gee in fog (Geneva, CH); EMO, Schwobhaus (Berna, CH). Giada co-founded and co-managed the Residenza La Fornace project (Milan, 2017-2020) and collaborated in the methodical reconstruction of the exhibition Le mammelle della Verità (Monte Verità, 2016). In 2021 she was a resident at the Cité des Arts in Paris and a 21/22 Fellow at the Swiss Institute in Rome. www.giadaolivotto.ch

THE JURY 

Yasmin Afschar 
Interim Director, Kunsthalle-Mainz, Inaugural Recipient of the Asia Society Switzerland Curator Residency 

Amy Cheng 
Co-Founder and Artistic Director of TheCube Project Space Taipei, Independent Curator 

Prof. Dr. Anselm Franke 
Head of the Curatorial Studies Programme ZHdK 

Esther Heer-Zacek 
Collector and Co-Initiator of the Curator Residency 

Dominik Keller 
Chairman of the Abegg-Foundation 

Dr. Nina Zimmer  
Director Kunstmuseum Bern – Zentrum Paul Klee 

ABOUT THECUBE PROJECT SPACE 

TheCube Project Space is an independent art space devoted to the research, production and presentation of contemporary art. As a non-profit art organization, it aims to explore local culture in depth, connect people from diverse backgrounds, establish long-term relationships with artists and participants and promote cultural exchanges between Taiwan and the international community. TheCube Project Space has two venues: TheCube Gongguan and TheCube7F. Both venues are located in the immediate vicinity of top universities, a district enjoying rich cultural resources and where talented minds converge. More 

PATRONAGE 

The Asia Society Switzerland Curator Residency is generously supported by Esther Heer-Zacek and Dominik Keller.

JURY BIOGRAPHIES

Yasmin Afschar is a Swiss-Iranian curator, editor, and producer for contemporary art, based in Zurich. Currently the Interim-Director at Kunsthalle-Mainz, Yasmin is the former curator at Aargauer Kunsthaus in Aarau, Switzerland, and has been co-curating the nomadic discussion platform LE FOYER – IN PROCESS since 2018. Recently, she was appointed as a mediator by the New Patrons, an international initiative supporting public art projects commissioned by citizens. Exhibitions Yasmin organized include Emma Kunz Cosmos. A Visionary in Dialogue with Contemporary Art (Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau 2021 & Tabakalera, San Sebastián 2022) as well as solo exhibitions with Hannah Villiger (together with Madeleine Schuppli, Muzeum Susch 2023), and Denise Bertschi (Aargauer Kunsthaus 2019), among others. Yasmin is the first recipient of Asia Society Switzerland's Curator Residency.

Amy Cheng is the co-founder of TheCube Project Space in Taipei. Her curatorial practice centers on the historical and geopolitical relations between Asia and the world in the contemporary scene. With the aim of delving into local culture and establishing long-term relationships with artists and cultural practitioners, she explores the possibility of “expanding curating”. Since 2010, she has promoted the studies on Taiwan’s modern sound cultures and extended this endeavor to multiple cultural forms such as exhibition, publication and online database. Cheng had been appointed the jury member of the Hugo Boss Asia Art Award (2015) and the 57th Venice Biennale (2017). Curated exhibitions by Amy Cheng include (selected): Trilogy of future memories series: Liquid Love (2020, Taipei), Towards Mysterious Realities (2016–2018, Taipei, KL and Seoul), Shamans and Dissent: Artist Dispatch Project Exhibition (2013, Hong Kong), Re-envisioning Society (2011–2013, Taipei) and The Heard and the Unheard ─ Soundscape Taiwan (Taiwan Pavilion, 2011, the Venice Biennale). She also co-curated these exhibitions such as Tell Me a Story: Locality and Narrative (2016, 2018, Shanghai and Turin), Phantom of Civilization (2015, Luxembourg), ALTERing NATIVism — Sound Cultures in Post-War Taiwan (2014, Taipei and Kaohsiung), the Third Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition — Melancholy in Progress (2012, Taipei) and Do You Believe in Reality? (2004 Taipei Biennial).

Prof. Dr. Anselm Franke has been the head of the Curatorial Studies Programme at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) since August 2022. Before, he was head of the Fine Arts and Film Department at the House of World Cultures in Berlin. In addition to numerous engagements in the stage and theatre sector, he previously worked as a curator and exhibition organiser at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, then headed the Kunsthal Extra City in Antwerp and was responsible as a senior curator for numerous festivals and biennials such as Manifesta 7 (2008) in Trento, the biennials of Taipei (2012) and Shanghai (2014) and international collaborative projects. He also has a diverse international network and regular teaching experience at universities in and outside Switzerland. He has also been responsible for numerous publications and holds a PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London. 

Esther Heer-Zacek is a collector, initiator of the Asia Society Switzerland Curator Residency and Trustee Emerita of Asia Society Switzerland. She is also Founding Patron of M+ Hong Kong, Trustee and Patron of Sovereign Art Foundation, and Member of the TATE Asia Pacific Acquisition Committee. Esther is the former Deputy Chief Executive Officer of BSI Bank Ltd Asia and was a Member of the BSI Group Advisory Board from August 2010 to December 2014. She was responsible for building BSI North Asia as the group strengthened its presence in the region. Besides her general management responsibilities, she led a team of private bankers as well as the wealth management services. Prior to her stint at BSI, Esther worked for 30 years for Coutts in Zurich and Hong Kong. 

Dominik Keller is Chairman of the Abegg-Foundation and member of the executive board of the Museum Rietberg’s association of friends in Zurich. 

Dr. Nina Zimmer is the Director of Kunstmuseum Bern – Zentrum Paul Klee. Until 2016, she was the deputy director of the Kunstmuseum Basel and curator of 19th-century and modern art. Before, she worked as a freelance curator at the Goethe Institute in Sofia, Bulgaria, and in Bucharest, Rumania; visiting professor for Western contemporary art theory at the Korean National University of Art, Seoul, South Korea; curatorial associate at the Hamburger Kunsthalle; visiting professor at the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago and at the Smart Art Museum, Chicago; and research fellow at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich. She studied art history, romance and media studies in Bordeaux and Göttingen from where she received her PhD with a thesis about SPUR and other artists’ groups.