Unofficial Kunstmuseum

Unofficial Hiking Society is an organic art collective based in Basel, Switzerland. The AG relies on physical and digital hikes as a means of environmental exploration and knowledge building. Unofficial walks offer critical information on topics such as capitalism and neoliberalism and create feminist and critical counter-narratives to what big corporations and institutions tell about themselves. The «unofficial» stands for resistance to economic norms, conformity and bureaucracy and counters these with the direct appropriation of the spaces around us, as the walks take place without advance notice and outside of institutions› radar. With changing members and themes, the collective aims to make visible and reflect on public space and its inherent exclusionary structures towards certain groups and communities. The focus is on semi-public spaces, such as company buildings, closed areas of public museums or internal company information. We are not only thinking of physical spaces, but also concepts such as the military, lobbying and access to information on the internet that are accessible but remain closed due to the sheer volume, time and energy it would take to engage with them. As a platform for research and reflection on the public sphere, the project creates opportunities to critically engage with such semi-hidden, semi-public worlds and creates new public(s) by constantly reconfiguring groups of visitors to participate in the walks and exchanges.