at the Bern Academy of the Arts (HKB / BFH) that initiates collaborations between designers, artistic researchers, scientists and the public in the field of climate crisis and ecological sustainability. We are dedicated to questions ofenvironmental and social justice as well as transdisciplinary approaches to knowledge co-production that integrate different perspectives.

We are convinced that to tackle complex problems, such as the climate crisis, it is necessary to develop new institutional frameworks, methods and practices, and mediation formats, involving artists, scientists, activists and the public. Our aim is to create spaces for transformation and bridge the gap between knowledge and action. 

Therefore, we conceptualise and organise various interventions such as residencies, teachings, and workshops, as well as conduct a SNSF-founded research project (2023-2027).

Yvonne (she /her), is a professor, founder and head of the EcoArtLab and responsible for the research field of art education at the Institute Practices and Theories in the Arts at HKB /BFH. She teaches and researches on arts-based research, transdisciplinarity, performance and disability, art (mediation) and climate change, curating as political practice and the (digital) transformation of cultural institutions, including the research projects “Aesthetics of the Im/Mobile” (2022-2026) and “EcoArtLab. Relational Encounters between the Arts and Climate Research” (2023-2027), funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. She is co-president of the Swiss Association for Theatre Research and founder of the “Performance & Disability” network of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR). In this context, she has curated encounters between scholars and artists in Asia, Europe, and South America for a decade. Before she joined HKB, she was a Lecturer and Deputy Head of the Institute for the Performing Arts and Film (IPF) at ZHdK, where she initiated and led various research projects and established the international PEERS for emerging artistic researchers as well as a PhD program. After studying theatre and dance studies and literature in Bern, Paris, and Mainz, she received a PhD in Theatre Studies at the University of Bern (2013). She was a research fellow at UIC Chicago and at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Yvonne has worked for different performance festivals, and created formats that foster a dialogue between arts, sciences, and society.

Johanna (she/her) is a PhD student researching on the intersection of climate justice, critical sustainability, art, and transdicisplinarity at the EcoArtLab. She is involved with the Institute of Geography at the University of Bern and the Bern Academy of the Arts (HKB). Having an academic background in human ecology - culture, power, and sustainability from Lund University as well as Liberal Arts and Sciences from University of Groningen, her focus is on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. Furthermore, she has been working with different NGO’s such as Noah - Friends of the Earth Denmark and the Wilderness Foundation UK in the area of education for sustainability on a local and European level. Having a strong interest in projects involving arti-basedstic research and collaborating between the arts and sciences to go beyond disciplinary perspectives, she has been mostly engaged with interdisciplinary and participatory research concerning topics such as social and environmental justice, urban spaces and disability, green education, and connectedness through art.

Mirko (he/him) works as an artist and curator as well as a mediator in the field of science. He studied fine arts with Mariana Abramović and Christoph Schlingensief and holds a master's degree in artistic research in the performing arts from the University of the Arts in Berlin. He has presented his work at the HKW Berlin, the Istanbul Biennial, the Goethe Institutes, the Bühnen Bern, La Bâtie Genève, the Belluard Festival Fribourg, the Munich Volkstheater and the Berlinale. After several teaching positions at various art academies, he joined the Institute of Geography at the University of Bern in 2019 as research associate and coordinator of the mLab. Since 2019 he is part of the working group Art in the Underground of the nGbK Berlin, which organizes an international competition for art in public space in Berlin. In 2022 he curated with Isabelle Meiffert a discursive festival and exhibition project on the cultural heritage of Baden/Aargau. Within the EcoArtLab, he will coordinate collaboations with the artists and researchers.

Head of the Propädeutikum at the Art School in Biel.

Professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Geneva.

Professor at the Institute of Art History at the University of Bern, chair of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art History, Vice-Dean and Senator of the Faculty of Humanities.