Salon der Gegenwart (Contemporary Salon) is a loose grouping of figurative painters. The name “Salon der Gegenwart” recalls the famous Paris Salon des Refusés of 1865, which was an “unofficial” salon held by artists whose works had previously been rejected by the “official” Salon. Zurich’s own refusés and refusées have now “made it” into an “official” institution, and the resulting Salon der Gegenwart is a sign that institutions can indeed be responsive to artists’ own initiatives. Salon der Gegenwart at Helmhaus Zürich is conceived as a curated exhibition with selected groups of works by fifteen painters belonging to three generations, all from Canton Zurich.

The Found in Translation project was also brought to the Helmhaus by a grassroots initiative, specifically by ExpoTranskultur, a society dedicated to intercultural understanding. The project brings together eleven newcomers to Zurich with eleven Zurich natives who are active in the cultural sphere. These two groups have been paired together in tandems, each of which comprises a newcomer with stories to tell and an artist, designer or curator who has long been resident in Zurich. The purpose of the project is to foster dialogue between the two, and with it greater intercultural understanding and a broadening of horizons. Encountering the other on the level of empathy, trust and joy is a good way of shedding prejudices.

In the first phase of the project, one half of the tandem, namely those with first-hand experience of migration, will tell their stories in texts composed in a kind of writing workshop. These texts will then serve the other half of the tandem as inspiration for a work to be created in close collaboration with the storytellers themselves. The third phase of the project will involve a wider audience and take the form of public tandem talks in which both halves of the tandem reflect on what they have experienced and share their thoughts with members of the public. After all, the point of the exercise is for all those involved to find each other in translation – in the shared language of empathy and the appreciation of art.