Wednesday, 4 July 2018, 06.30 pm

For over two years, under the leadership of Nicolas Brulhart (Archive Kunsthalle Bern), we have been working consistently on its archive. This work involved the cataloguing, conservation, and classification of more than 100’000 items. In addition to these “classical” archiving processes, we decided to develop an individual, adapted strategy for digitizing content. In close partnership with the design office of Astrom / Zimmer & Tereszkiewicz, we created an interface linking the material archive and the database to a public website. This website presents an accurate digital representation of the archive of the Kunsthalle Bern, which is located in the Kunsthalle’s historical building at Helvetiaplatz 1 in Bern and available for researchers. It covers about a century of exhibition making and offers a reliable tool for historians and professionals in the field as well as for anyone curious to dig into the history of the institution and its more than 700 exhibitions, 5000 artists, and 13 directors.
From a general overview of exhibitions to the details of individually scanned documents in our holdings, the website helps to visualize the history of Kunsthalle Bern. A search mode allows the user to browse exhibitions, artists, documents, and to cross-reference an ever-growing database. Benefiting from the possibility of digital and the collective production of knowledge, it fosters the emergence of until now invisible continuities and transhistorical connections. The number of digitized documents and the amount of information will grow progressively and create an ever denser web of narratives.

Program:

Welcoming and introduction
Charlotte Laubard

Presentation of the Kunsthalle Bern Online Archive
Astrom / Zimmer & Tereszkiewicz
Arthur Fink, Nicolas Brulhart and Giulia Ficco

The archive project by Kunsthalle Bern was generously supported by
Kultur Stadt Bern, Swisslos Kultur Kanton Bern, Burgergemeinde Bern, UBS Kulturstiftung, Jubiläumsstiftung der Mobiliar, Sophie und Karl Binding Stiftung, Memoriav, Ursula Wirz Stiftung, mmBE Akzent, Gesellschaft zu Mittellöwen.

With special thanks to
Anthon Astrom, Mara Berger, Bruna Casagrande, Aline Feichtinger, Giulia Ficco, Arthur Fink, Agathe Jarczyk, Rafael Käsermann, Lucie Kolb, Tobias Lanz, Philipp Messner, Jeffrey Nünlist, Sören Schmeling, Fabrice Tereszkiewicz, Lukas Zimmer, Micha Zollinger, Yvonne Zürcher.