SANDRA KNECHT IN CONVERSATION WITH HANS ULRICH OBRIST

Sandra Knecht is a Swiss conceptual and performance artist whose work intensively explores the themes of identity and home. Her artistic practice, which encompasses cooking, photography, film, installation, and performance, examines the concept of home from various perspectives – geographical, historical, and culinary. With her artist's book Home is a Foreign Place, she presents a new series of photographic works as well as documentation of her long-standing engagement with this theme. For Knecht, home remains a foreign place that must be constantly questioned. In conversation with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, the artist talks about her journey into art and her first artistic projects.

Hans Ulrich Obrist: How did your project in the countryside begin?

Sandra Knecht: I used to work as a social pedagogue for over 20 years, specializing in male adolescents with integration problems. Back then, I always cooked with their mothers because they didn't dare to come to my office, either because they didn't speak the language or were afraid of bureaucracy. I then asked their sons or daughters if they could show me how to prepare, for example, Börek or Fesenjan. So, twice a week, I cooked or ate at these young people's homes while we talked. In the early 2010s, I felt I needed a break. I wanted to take a sabbatical in a field where I didn't know much. Since art had always attracted me, I decided to pursue a master's degree in fine arts. I thought it would provide a reboot for my brain. I was accepted even without a high school diploma or bachelor's degree. After three weeks there, I knew I wanted to be an artist. That's my great love. Even before that, I always went to museums, even as a child. Since then, I've done nothing but art. Due to a lack of money – and knowing that no one would invest in an aging lesbian from the countryside who now wanted to make art – I dissolved my pension fund, set up a barn in a temporary use area at the Basel harbor, which I had previously dismantled in the Jura, and, with all necessary building permits and a catering license exam, finally obtained a catering permit. There, once a month, I hosted a dinner for 30 people under the title "Immer wieder sonntags" (Again and again on Sundays). It was always a 5-course meal, each time dedicated to a different culinary craft or a different animal from the region. That was the beginning. Quite soon, Koyo Kouoh and Samuel Leuenberger approached me and invited me to Venice. I found that great because I then realized that with my work, I act like a portrait artist across many different media. But it's always about the theme "Home Is a Foreign Place," meaning understanding home as an unknown place – also as an unknown place within me – because I'm always interested in what ultimately constitutes art. It's not just about technique, but about imagination. Where does it come from? Who influenced it? Why? This sometimes results in books and sometimes in installations.

HUO: Books are an important medium for you.

SK: Books are the most important thing for me.

HUO: So it started with Restaurant Chnächt, a temporary use that defined your artistic identity. But there was also destruction there.

SK: Yes, exactly. Again and again, youth gangs or even homeless people broke in to hang out. That happened about three times. I only opened the space once a month; it was closed on the other days. That was my thing: it should feel as if the house had fallen from the sky, to a place where it didn't belong at all. When you were inside the barn, it was completely silent, almost like in a chapel.

HUO: How did this facade come about?

SK: I developed the facade together with Maja Hürst, a street artist. I loved her animals that she had painted much earlier. So I asked her if she wanted to develop paintings with me, depicting all four important farm animals. We painted the pictures with quark, water, and lime, just as stables used to be limewashed. By now, almost nothing of this facade is visible anymore; the paintings were washed away by the rain.

HUO: Which four farm animals were those?

SK: Poultry, cows, pigs, and small ruminants, meaning sheep and goats.

HUO: What was the second big house project after Restaurant Chnächt?

SK: After Chnächt came the aviary on the Mapprach farm. In the past, farmers in the canton of Baselland were not allowed to build a residential house in the countryside; it was only permitted within the village center. That's why the houses in these villages are always so close together, while everything around them is open. This allowed the land to be built on in case of war. Mapprach is a huge farm estate at the top with a huge park with 200-year-old sequoias. That triggered me. So I built a Victorian aviary from old plastic tunnels, which you could walk around. Inside there were rare poultry breeds, my pigeons, and many berry bushes, which are important for birds and insects. These bushes are now on my own plot of land, also in the canton of Baselland. At that time, I had three guinea fowl somewhat outside on a hill, where we leased land. In the village 200 meters away, someone living in their detached house felt disturbed by these three guinea fowl and filed a complaint against us. I engaged in this fight because I was interested in the discussion about what is considered a sacred cow in Switzerland, and especially in the villages. I finally declared this village a social sculpture and began to exchange written correspondence with employees of the municipal administration, cantonal administrative employees, and federal authorities. I then collected this correspondence in the book Babel.

      

Header image: Sandra Knecht and Hans Ulrich Obrist in conversation © Michelle Nicol