Arts at CERN has announced that French-Swiss artist Marion Tampon-Lajarriette has been selected for the first edition of the Resonance residency. This new programme is part of the arts collaboration between CERN, the Republic and Canton of Geneva and the City of Geneva, supported by the CERN & Society Foundation, which was announced last November. Resonance offers an annual residency opportunity for Geneva-based artists dedicated to fostering artistic experimentation through exchanges with CERN’s community and research.
Marion Tampon-Lajarriette’s practice explores phenomena related to vision, memory and the construction of knowledge. She creates immersive installations that blend organic materials, reinterpreted technologies, video and performance. Since 2019, she has developed site-specific research and fostered transdisciplinary dialogues through collaborations with scientists, artists and communities in Switzerland, Mexico and Bolivia.
Tampon-Lajarriette will embark on a two-month residency at CERN to develop Songes cachés de la vallée sombre (Hidden songs of the dark valley), a project that explores the role of intuition and dreaming in scientific discovery. The artist will invite CERN’s community to engage in intuitive writing sessions, experimental visualisations and the creation of a collective dream archive. These exchanges will inform a speculative video-documentary that interweaves scientific language, poetic speculation and imagery of quantum physics. The work will offer a meditation on the entanglement of dreams, fundamental research and its unresolved mysteries, from dark matter to the nature of consciousness.
“It’s very exciting to see CERN strengthen its ties with the Republic and Canton of Geneva and the City of Geneva, through Resonance. CERN and Geneva share a commitment to nurturing curiosity, creativity and innovation, and we are grateful for this fruitful collaboration,” said Charlotte Lindberg Warakaulle, CERN’s Director for International Relations. “I look forward to seeing how Marion Tampon-Lajarriette will engage with our scientific community and draw inspiration from CERN’s scientific culture and, in turn, renew the way we find poetry and beauty in our fundamental research.”
“The City of Geneva is proud to support the Resonance residency, which embodies its commitment to innovation and to dialogue between art and science by offering Geneva-based artists a unique opportunity to collaborate with the CERN community. This partnership, cemented by a tripartite agreement with the Canton of Geneva and CERN and supported by the CERN & Society Foundation, heralds the start of an ambitious collaboration that the City looks forward to seeing continue in the long term,” said Sophie Sallin, cultural adviser for the City of Geneva.
“The Canton of Geneva works to foster a diverse culture that embraces other disciplines. It is delighted to be associated with the Resonance artistic residency programme, at the crossroads between art and science. This programme also reflects the openness of a major world-renowned scientific organisation towards the city that hosts it and is a way to celebrate the ties between Geneva and CERN through mutual cultural enrichment,” said Thierry Apothéloz, State Councillor for the Republic and Canton of Geneva.
This multi-year collaboration strengthens ties between the Laboratory, the Republic and Canton of Geneva and the City of Geneva, fostering dialogue between local artists and the CERN community. Following its inaugural open call, the Resonance residency programme will launch annual calls from 2025 to 2027 to support artistic projects informed by CERN’s physics.
The jury was composed of Yann Chateigné, curator and writer; Xenia Anais Harder, Arts at CERN residencies coordinator; Sophie Sallin, cultural adviser for the City of Geneva; Jérôme Soudan, cultural adviser for the Republic and Canton of Geneva; and Helga Timko, accelerator physicist and member of the CERN Cultural Advisory Board.