The relationship between Switzerland and South Africa has been the object of extensive research over the past two decades. However, the focus has until now been on the role that Swiss business and politics played as enablers for the apartheid state. A research project running from 2019 to 2023 at the Hochschule der Künste Bern HKB, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), has aimed instead to shed light on cultural relations between the two countries from the beginnings of apartheid in 1948 through to the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994.

To conclude this project, the Hochschule der Künste Bern will be holding a conference from Wednesday 3 May to Friday 5 May 2023 in Basel in Switzerland, hosted by the Basler Afrika Bibliographien in collaboration with the Centre for African Studies Basel and Africa Open Institute of the University of Stellenbosch, and funded by the SNSF.

Photo: The Dollar Brand Trio, St. Gallen 1962 (© Richard Butz)