Swiss Ocean Services

Raphaela von Weichs discusses her provenance research on musical instruments for the exhibition ‘Afrosonica – soundscapes’ (2025) at the Geneva Museum of Ethnography (MEG). The conversation explores the “biographies” of objects, how they were collected, often through missionary strategies or scientific missions, and the colonial ideologies that facilitated their acquisition for Switzerland. By exa...

Artist and researcher Denise Bertschi shares audio excerpts from her work on Swiss involvement in colonialism and commodity trading. The video Helvécia, Brazil (2017) retraces stories of enslavement and colonial violence on Swiss-owned coffee plantations in northeastern Brazil in the 19th century. Confidential (2018) engages with the gold trade between Switzerland and South Africa during the years...

This new series begins with a striking moment in Switzerland’s sonic history. For the 1964 Swiss National Exhibition in Lausanne, composer Rolph Liebermann unveiled Symphonie Les Échanges — an extraordinary orchestra of 156 automated office machines. Typewriters clattered, calculating machines whirred, cash registers chimed, teleprinters clicked, horns blared, and telephone sets rang in precise co...