Art Valais
Territorial activation.
A systemic work
that reconfigures the way
a territory is inhabited.
“This work required more than twenty years of preparation and six years of construction.
Jasm One
Today, it exists.
It is now part of the Valais territory and will continue to evolve through those who look at it, move through it and extend it.”
Thesis:
Can an artwork become a living system in continuous expansion?
Can it operate simultaneously on landscapes, flows and human trajectories?
Can it durably transform the way a territory is experienced, traversed and structured?
Action:
To conceive the artwork as a distributed active device taking form through a plurality of places, situations and modes of intervention.
To anchor it within inhabited territories, everyday circulations and existing structures so it can operate in direct relation with local realities.
To create the conditions capable of durably reshaping the cultural, structural and identity-based organization of a territory.
Result:
The artwork is no longer an object but an operating structure.
Founded on an explicit artistic intention, it articulates a formal and conceptual coherence, produces a sensory and symbolic experience exceeding any utilitarian function, and makes the system itself its medium.
Here, the artwork is no longer fixed — it acts. It generates an environment for the production, transmission and circulation of forms and knowledge. Its configuration approaches that of the museum — not through architectural form, but through its original and historical function. The museum then becomes an organic ecosystem whose functions are redistributed directly into reality.
The artwork reintroduces art into collective life, drawing from local identities, memories and specificities. Where art is not expected, it develops and structures a network of interventions, research and transmission operating across a continuous geography.
The territory itself becomes the active support of a living artistic composition — rooted, evolving and infinite through contact with those who inhabit it.
The artwork is no longer an object.
It becomes a system.
What this systemic work
has generated so far:
An open-air museum
Art Valais Open Air Museum
- A museum deployed across 5,224 km², from urban centers to alpine villages
- More than 100 murals across over 30 municipalities in Valais
- Swiss and international artists invited for residencies or productions
- A cantonal artistic route connecting the two linguistic regions of the canton
An artistic residency
The Résidence Mont d’Or Art Valais
- A space for research, creation and exhibition established within a historic wine estate
- More than 150 artists invited, exhibited or involved in residency activities
- Workshops and production sessions open to new audiences
- A place activating exchanges between emerging artists, international scenes and new forms of artistic expression
A collective memory
Art Valais Documentation & Archives
- A geolocated guide allowing the territory to be experienced through artistic interventions
- More than 50 mini-documentaries dedicated to murals and local narratives
- More than 10,000 archival photographs, from process to final work
- A visual and cinematic memory built at the scale of the canton
A digital mediation platform
The Art Valais Mobile Application
- A discovery and exploration device
- An interactive mapping system connecting murals, locations and documentary content
- A geolocated guide allowing the territory to be experienced through artistic interventions
Water, Martigny, 2020 – Guido van Helten
Now Future, Sierre, 2020 – Jasm One
Pigalle 175e, Résidence Mont d’Or Art Valais, 2023
I dr Chiste / Dans la boîte, Résidence Mont d’Or Art Valais, 2022. – Drü Egg x Thierry Sermier
Angèle, Savièse, 2021 – Jasm One
C.C Olsommer, Veyras, 2020 – Jasm One
40 additional documentaries
available on the Art Valais youtube page