In collaboration with the University of Zurich, We Are AIA I Awareness in Art presents Botanical Memories: A Performance Series at the Botanical Garden Zurich. Taking place in the summer of 2025, this artistic program features performances, workshops, and lectures exploring both ancient and evolving knowledge of medicinal plants.
Set against the backdrop of the Botanical Garden, the series addresses the loss of traditional medicinal plant knowledge. The site's historical context fosters a dialogue on healing practices beyond Western medicine. The events will look at personal and collective relationships with plants and healing techniques, accessibility to nature, histories of migrations within human and more-than-human, and beyond.
The series invites the public to engage with artistic practices that draw on traditional wisdom, offering an opportunity to explore alternative healing methods and reconnect with nature—healing holistically as individuals within an ecosystem. Organised in collaboration with traditional healers and the Botanical Garden's ethnobotanists, the program encourages an exchange of knowledge and perspectives.
We will kick off the performance series, with Simon Grab and Lika Nüssli, a collaboration which sees sounds by sound artist Grab inspired by the
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In collaboration with the University of Zurich, We Are AIA I Awareness in Art presents Botanical Memories: A Performance Series at the Botanical Garden Zurich. Taking place in the summer of 2025, this artistic program features performances, workshops, and lectures exploring both ancient and evolving knowledge of medicinal plants.
Set against the backdrop of the Botanical Garden, the series addresses the loss of traditional medicinal plant knowledge. The site's historical context fosters a dialogue on healing practices beyond Western medicine. The events will look at personal and collective relationships with plants and healing techniques, accessibility to nature, histories of migrations within human and more-than-human, and beyond.
The series invites the public to engage with artistic practices that draw on traditional wisdom, offering an opportunity to explore alternative healing methods and reconnect with nature—healing holistically as individuals within an ecosystem. Organised in collaboration with traditional healers and the Botanical Garden's ethnobotanists, the program encourages an exchange of knowledge and perspectives.
We will kick off the performance series, with Simon Grab and Lika Nüssli, a collaboration which sees sounds by sound artist Grab inspired by the surrounding plants translated into movements and onto a canvas by Nüssli.
In Healing Ritual, the sonic universe of Simon Grab draws its essence from the surrounding vegetation, forming the foundation of a sensory dialogue. Lika Nüssli responds with her body—guided by the echo of these sounds—and transfers her movement onto a transparent canvas with fluid brushstrokes. What emerges is a living, ever-evolving process of transformation and growth.
Grab adds another layer to this encounter with the natural soundscape, which he refers to as the Sonics of Posthuman Species. His sound journey stretches from an untouched, primordial ecosystem through the human-shaped present, to a speculative future in which nature reclaims its space. Despite the dystopian undertones, the artists see this work as a gesture of respect, calling for deeper awareness and care in our relationship with the environment.
Simon Grab (Switzerland, *1971) – Composer and sound designer. In Grab’s sonic world, control is never absolute; error is not failure, but a vital component. Like natural systems, his compositions remain fluid, never fixed—constantly adapting and rebalancing through feedback and interaction with their surroundings.
Lika Nüssli (Switzerland, *1973) – A multidisciplinary artist whose creative practice involves observing, absorbing, and reinterpreting the world around her. For the freelance artist, artistic creation means observing and understanding the world around her and translating it into a new, unique form that can be read and interpreted by others. Creating means making a statement about our society, but also working on her own history and thus making it visible and tangible
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