NNo toetse sf rformo mt hteh eF eFde edrearla lP Pa la lcaec e many awards this year. Out of 560 titles that were submitted by 30 different countries, prizes went to four books that had also won awards in “The Most Beautiful Swiss Books” competition. The connection between the two competitions provides a global platform for Swiss books and an opportunity to showcase the quality of book design in Switzerland. Based abroad but proud to be Swiss The film score for the Oscar-nominated animation “My Life as a Courgette” was incidentally produced by Berne musician Sophie Hunger, who won the 2016 Swiss Grand Award for Music. Sophie Hunger is one of numerous Swiss Culture Award winners who are proud to be Swiss but live and work abroad. Hunger lives in Berlin and also has an apartment in Paris. Her beguiling pop music features songs in Swiss-German, German, French and English. She pushes the envelope and defies categorisation with each new album, deftly flitting between the genres of jazz, folk, rock, pop and chanson. Theatre director Jossi Wieler, who won the Swiss Grand Award for Theatre/Hans Reinhart Ring in 2020, has earned acclaim both at home and abroad. Wieler was born in 1951 in Kreuzlingen (canton of Thurgau) and lived from 1972 to 1980 in Israel, where he studied stage directing at Tel Aviv University. In 1980 he joined the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf as assistant director, going on to direct numerous productions at theatres in Germany and Switzerland, in cities including Heidelberg, Bonn, Stuttgart, Basel, Hamburg, Munich, Zurich and Berlin. Wieler now lives in Berlin. He has been a key international player in musical theatre for a quarter of a century. His many theatre productions in Germany and Switzerland have won numerous national and international awards. The Stuttgart Opera was also voted Opera House of the Year under Jossi Wieler’s leadership in 2016. Wieler’s international reputation underscores the importance of his work in a European context. The 2023 Swiss Grand Prix for Art/Prix Meret Oppenheim went to Uriel Orlow. Born in 1973 in Zurich, Orlow studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design and the Slade School of Art in London, and at the University of Geneva, before receiving his PhD from the University of the Arts in London. He now lives and works in Lisbon, London and Zurich. Orlow, who has presented his work at numerous international survey exhibitions, including the 54th Venice Biennale, Manifesta 9 and 12, Genk/ Palermo, and biennials in Berlin, Dakar, Taipei, Sharjah, Moscow, Kathmandu and Guatemala, enjoys an excellent reputation in the world of art. His work has been shown at many museums and art venues internationally, including the Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Whitechapel Gallery and the ICA in London; the Palais de Tokyo in Paris; Les Complices, Helmhaus and Shedhalle in Zurich; as well as in Geneva, Ramallah, Marseille, Cairo, Istanbul, Mexico City, Dublin, New York, Toronto, Melbourne and elsewhere. Sophie Hunger, Jossi Wieler and Uriel Orlow, as well as Frédéric Pajak (resides in Arles, France; Swiss Grand Award for Literature 2021) and Etienne Delessert (lives and works in Lakeville, Connecticut, USA; Swiss Grand Award for Design 2023), are just some of the many Swiss Culture Award winners who are unequivocally Swiss but whose activities have taken them far and wide. (FOC) Sophie Hunger. Photo: Jérôme Witz Jossi Wieler, Swiss Grand Award for Theatre/Hans-Reinhart-Ring 2020. Photo: FOC/Gneborg Uriel Orlow, Swiss Grand Prix for Art/Prix Meret Oppenheim 2023. Photo: FOC/Florian Spring The successes of Swiss cinema on the international stage underline Switzerland’s cultural diversity and its ability to tell stories that will resonate in other countries. 25 Swiss Review / December 2023 / No.6
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