Talk

Stephan Zimmerli: Thinking with the Hand

The course, structured in six chapters – Friction / Focus / Error / Touch / Slowness / Presence – proposes an investigation of the hidden qualities of drawing, in a continuous dance between the two-dimensional space of the image, the three-dimensional realm of architecture, and the fourth dimension of time phenomena, light, sound and movements.

Bio

Stephan Zimmerli is a visual artist, architect, scenographer and musician, based in Paris.

For the past 25 years, he has been developing a trans-disciplinary artistic practice at the crossroads of Architecture, Theater and Music - with Visual Arts as the core discipline; his constant practice of Drawing is structured and ordered in hundreds of daily sketchbooks forming the basis of a personal art of memory, a "mnemotopia" gravitating around specific themes: time, reminiscence, atmosphere, mental space.

A graduate of the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs and the Ecole d'Architecture de Belleville in Paris, Stephan Zimmerli completed his diploma project at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio in Switzerland, in Peter Zumthor's Atelier. He now works as a freelance architect, designing projects merging sound and space ("Doisneau & la Musique" exhibition at the Philharmonie de Paris, Studiolo "Klein Leberau" for singer/musician Rodolphe Burger), while teaching Architectural Design, “Atmospherical Image” and "Thinking With The Hand" courses at several European schools, including University of East London, Ecoles d'Architecture de Paris-Belleville & de Rennes, ENSAD, Universität Liechtenstein, and Accademia di Architettura Mendrisio.

In 1995, he created the folk-rock band Moriarty with 4 other musicians, playing double-bass, guitar & piano under the alias Zim Moriarty. The band toured for 10 years around the world, playing over 800 concerts, recording 5 albums and achieving multiple gold-records with over 300’000 copies sold and a series of soundtracks for film and theater. He has also been in charge of art direction, graphic design, video clips & photography for their independent record label Air Rytmo.

Furthering the principles developed within the band and their label, since 2018 he started collaborating in the field of Contemporary Art with Moriarty’s guitarist Charles Carmignac and the Fondation Carmignac in Porquerolles, working on their visual identity, concept drawings & manifestos, curation and soundtracks for exhibitions, and designing the “Musée-Valise” art-therapy project for hospitals.

Since 1999 he has collaborated with theatre director, scenographer and playwright Marc Lainé, setting up the studio “La Boutique Obscure” and designing over 80 scenography projects in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Canada, before joining the Comédie de Valence (Centre Dramatique National) as associated artist in charge of hybrid theatre projects merging music, architecture & visual arts.

Stephan Zimmerli’s artwork has been exhibited in London (Caravanserail & Sketch galleries) and Paris ("Par les petits sentiers" at the Carrousel du Louvre, "Echoes From The Borderline" at Galerie &Co119, "A Dess(e)in" in the nave of the Versailles stables), and has been broadcasted through numerous publications and conferences, as well as graphic and musical performances focusing on the interaction between manual drawing and mental space. He recently completed a residency at the Murate Art District in Florence, Italy, where he developed an exhibition-performance project on the Studioli and the Art of Memory.