Convened Residency

Connect South Africa CERN

Since 2014 CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva and, Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council have worked together to foster experimentation through the arts in connection with fundamental science. In 2021, they launched Connect, a collaboration framework that marks the extension of their joint efforts to support and promote dialogues between artists and scientists.

Arts at CERN, the Laboratory’s arts programme, fosters significant exchanges between art and physics. Artists across all creative disciplines are welcome at CERN to experience the way the big questions about our universe are pursued through fundamental research.

Visiting Residency

Lebo Masiteng

My practice encompasses research, making, and cultural consulting, with the term Litemana, meaning "verses" in Sesotho, reflecting the diverse methods and materials I explore. I approach dwelling as an embodied experience rather than a mere structure, emphasising that to dwell means to be present, engaged, and connected. The way I see it, the body serves as the first form of architecture, embodying rhythm, gesture, and memory.

Through making garments, vessels and architectural forms, I investigate how shelter, containment, and care emerge from this embodied experience. My focus is on the women, or boNkgono, who preserve and transmit dwelling practices and indigenous knowledge across generations. Their crafts, ways of holding and transmitting memory, and spatial knowledge challenge conventional notions of knowing.

At the heart of my work lies a central question: How does the body need to be held to live? This inquiry informs my collaborations across fashion, architecture, art, and culture, where I aim to develop frameworks that emerge from lived experience, sensitivity to ongoing history and heritage, and relational intelligence.

Visiting Residency

Sam, /Xam Fortuin

/Xam Fortuin, is an emerging interdisciplinary artist, based in Cape Town, South Africa. Deeply inspired by his indigenous Southern African roots, his work speaks to his fierce passion for creativity, and a sense of connection to the Earth. The name, given to him through his ancestral calling, ‘/Xam’, is a name that carries the ancient origins of the peoples of Southern Africa. His connection to land, family and ancestry is filled with stories and lessons that find their way into his creative expressions. His work spans across disciplines, across mediums, and across boundaries - with explorations primarily in mixed media, sculpture, and film. His practice is guided by a strong foundation of values, revolutionary politics, and a spiritual connection to the cosmos.

Visiting Residency

Yonela Makoba

Yonela Makoba is a multidisciplinary artist from Mthatha, now based in Cape Town, South Africa. Holding a BSc in Environmental and Geographic Science from the University of Cape Town. Her practice encompasses photography, performance art, installation, mixed media, and printmaking, engaging deeply with themes of memory, indigenous knowledge systems, and the body. Makoba’s research investigates the intersections of personal and collective memory through an ethnographic lens.

Visiting Residency

Eric Gyamfi

Eric Gyamfi (b. 1990, Ghana) is a Photographer/Artist, living and working in Ghana. Eric holds a B.A in Information studies with Economics from the University of Ghana (2014) and a MFA from the Department of painting and sculpture, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (2024 ). Gyamfi, was also a fellow at the Photographers’ Master Class (Khartoum, Sudan 2016 and Nairobi, Kenya 2017, Johannesburg, South Africa 2018), participated in the Nuku Studio Photography Workshops (2016) and World Press Photo West African Master Class (2017), both in Accra. His work has been featured in A Diagnosis of Time: Unlearn What You Have Learned (Red Clay Studio, Tamale, Ghana 2021), Ecologies and Politics of the Living (Vienna Biennale, 2021), The 11th and 12th Bamako Encounters (Musée National du Mali/Mémorial Modibo Kéita, 2017/2019), Fixing Shadows: Julius and I (FOAM, 2019/2020, Autograph, 2023), the 74th Berlinale International Film Festival (Forum Expanded, Betonhalle, Silent Green, Arsenal —Institute for Film and Video Art– 1& 2, 2024), The New York African Film Festival (Brooklyn Academy of Music 2023, The Africa Center 2024), Punya 2.0 (Kunsthallbern, Switzerland, 2024), Kɔηsεt Pāti (Accra, Ghana, 2025), Diriyah Biennale (Riyadh 2026) the upcoming 59th Carnegie International and others. Gyamfi’s work takes the photographic medium as a primary interest, focusing on examining and reprogramming its processes and materials to expand their functionality.

Convened Residency

Fluid Boundaries

Fluid Boundaries: The Interplay of Water, Art, Science, and Indigenous Knowledge Systems brings together participants from South Africa, Brazil and Switzerland in a transdisciplinary collaboration situated at the intersection of art, science and indigenous knowledge with a strong focus on decolonial practice.