Stephan Zimmerli (FR, 1976)
Residency period: May 2025
instagram.com/stephan_zimmerli
In May 2025, I settled at La Becque for a one-month residency with the aim of developing my research on the “Architectures of Memory”, mental spaces, and the “Studiolo of Exile”: an art project in which I design and build wooden rooms where I invite exiled people to describe memories of their lost places, while I attempt to make drawings of their mental visions in real time.
The research first involved drawing a giant mental map, reworked daily, along with a collection of references to mental spaces and studioli across the centuries. I condensed the findings and insights from this experience into a short essay, “Origins & Horizons”, then imagined a floating “Studiolo” for Lake Léman, with the idea that it could travel from pier to pier along the coast, collecting memories of exiled people along the way, resonating with the history of the Lemanic Arc as a refuge and safe haven for exiles over the centuries.
Then, news came that I would have to develop a new “Studiolo of Exile” in Berlin, in an old factory building: a case-study application of the theoretical research in a new context. I drew a set of plans and built a 1:20 scale wooden model, then decided to baptize the Studiolo in its birthplace, the « Léman » – testing the framing and views, letting the sunlight in through the zenithal aperture, and shooting a series of analog photographs as I immersed myself in the water with the model, letting the “Studiolo” hover above the surface, drifting on the horizon. — Stephan Zimmerli
Based in Paris, Stephan Zimmerli is an artist, architect, scenographer, and musician. For the past twenty-five years, his transdisciplinary practice has taken shape at the crossroads of architecture, theater, and music, with visual art as its central discipline. At the heart of these overlapping fields, drawing has developed into a daily practice and the foundation of a personal art of memory — a mnemotopy orbiting around recurring themes such as time, reminiscence, atmosphere, and mental space.
A graduate of the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and the École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Paris-Belleville, Zimmerli completed his diploma project at the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio (Switzerland), in Peter Zumthor’s studio. His practice now crystallizes around the design of narrative and sonic architectures — mental spaces and studioli — brought to life through drawing performances, placing the thinking hand at the core of a reflection on exile, resilience, and the reconstruction of memory.
For this residency, the spaces are made available to mudac by La Becque with the support of Nestlé.
Stephan Zimmerli, La Becque, 2025, photo Aurélien Haslebacher