Alfatih (CH, 1995)
Residency period: May-June 2025
My time at La Becque provided space to develop work and research across various directions, beyond my usual focus. I learned that the residency site had once been an orchard, where its owner, Françoise Siegfried-Meier, rode her horse. Around the same Léman Lake, farm animals, including horses were raised, likely until the 19th century. I instinctively wanted to invite a horse back on site to rekindle this history.
I approached the local equestrian center, shared my process, and took regular classes to build relationships with its workers and horses. My interest extended to the decline of horses in agriculture, transport and heavy-duty labor following the Industrial Revolution, and to the rise of the “leisure horse” in Western countries like the USA, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland and France.
Though the center couldn’t bring a horse for the Open Studios at La Becque, I presented a 1:1 scale animated horse in my apartment. Instead of plowing or pulling a carriage, this horse dragged a guitar across the floor, with a sound system on its back.
A slideshow projected through the curtains documented my own act of dragging a guitar on foot from the equestrian center to the residency while recording the sound. The guitar was displayed outside, its damaged back facing the viewer. The high volume and scale emphasized the work’s physicality.
Concurrently, I experimented with lost wax casting using the ceramic studio’s kiln. The small sculptures were displayed in the library’s vitrines. — alfatih
Over the past few years, alfatih (lives and works in Switzerland) has presented interactive, installative, and video works in venues and institutions such as Circuit, Lausanne; Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano; Sentiment, Zurich; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Le Locle; Centre d’art contemporain, Geneva; Swiss Institute, New York; Kora Arts Center, Castrignano; Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne; Kunsthalle Friart, Fribourg.
1-2: alfatih, La Becque, 2025, photo Matthieu Croizier
3-9: alfatih, La Becque Open Studios, 2025, photo Aurélien Haslebacher