Participatory Public Art · Spatial Imagination · Est. 2021

Studio
Portmann

We develop works, formats and consultancy services that invite communities to collectively reimagine and prototype alternative futures in real space — works that only exist through collective presence.

Making utopia
visible, temporary
and collective.

Hägendorf 2100 — Aldgate Edition · Toynbee Hall, LondonHägendorf 2100 — Mural realised with 250 pupilsLeuchtzug ZUKUNFT — Ittigen → Bantigen, 2025melt dome 2028 — Lucerne area · 14 Aug – 10 Sep 2028Förderpreis Bildende Kunst — Canton of Solothurn, 2026Hägendorf 2100 — Aldgate Edition · Toynbee Hall, LondonHägendorf 2100 — Mural realised with 250 pupilsLeuchtzug ZUKUNFT — Ittigen → Bantigen, 2025melt dome 2028 — Lucerne area · 14 Aug – 10 Sep 2028Förderpreis Bildende Kunst — Canton of Solothurn, 2026

01 / Create

Create

Cultural institutions · Municipalities · Festival organisers

Commissioned public art, participatory festivals, immersive formats and light processions. Works that only exist through collective presence in real space — enacted, not observed.

Selected works

02 / Consult

Consult

Cities · Developers · Urban planners · Cultural institutions

Cultural strategy, creative placemaking, spatial futures research and facilitation. We help institutions think ambitiously about culture's role in the city and the long term.

Work with us

03 / Collaborate

Collab

Communities · Schools · Partner artists · Researchers

Participatory workshops, co-creation processes, educational programmes and research partnerships. We build conditions for collective imagination to flourish.

Partner with us

Studio · Operating principles

Four conditions for enacted utopia.

Enacted

The work requires physical presence to exist. No observers — only participants. Utopia must be built together, in real space.

II.

Structured

Legal, financial and organisational architecture built for longevity. Art practice and production held in a coherent multi-entity ecosystem.

III.

Transferable

Formats documented to travel, license and evolve. What is invented in Olten can run in London or beyond.

IV.

Rooted

Practice grounded in real communities, real budgets and real space — not simulation. Proof of concept before theory.

A manifesto, briefly

Utopia is not a place —
it is a temporary reality
of new relations and place
that for a moment invites people
into collectively created place.

— 01

We build the conditions, not the conclusions. Every format is an open frame the public completes.

— 02

We measure success in repeat collaborators, returning audiences and the formats other cities licence.

— 03

We hold the work in a multi-entity ecosystem so practice can outlive any single funding round.

Practice

Work that only exists through collective, physical participation.

Studio Portmann is the practice of Yannick Portmann, an interdisciplinary artist from Switzerland based in London. The studio creates relational spaces in which people come together through collective action, play and shared imagination — grounded in close attention to the social, spatial and emotional dynamics of public space.

The works are relational-utopian landscapes: spaces of experience where individual inner worlds meet a shared public experience, and participatory practice reframes existing realities. Participatory and contemplative processes are combined with sculptural, architectural and performative elements — light installations, murals, sculptures and ephemeral interventions, often made with communities in collective, sometimes ritual processes, from alpine summits to immersive built environments.

Key works include the social sculpture melt dome (Olten, 2024), the mural URSPRUNG (Lucerne, 2022) and the light procession Leuchtzug ZUKUNFT (Bern, 2025). The work has been covered by national media and supported by the Swiss Society for the Common Good (SGG), the Däster Schild Foundation, cantonal culture funds and an Ernst Göhner Foundation grant; melt dome received an Innocheque from Innosuisse (2024–2027). In 2026, Portmann received the Förderpreis Bildende Kunst of the Canton of Solothurn, and Hägendorf 2100 — Aldgate Edition was shown in London in collaboration with Whitechapel Gallery as part of Backyard Biennial. He is a board member of VISARTE Solothurn, co-president of the association Zusammenspiel (CH) and a member of Social Making (UK).

Public Art
Spatial Imagination
Festival Practice
Creative Placemaking
Futures Research
Participatory Design
Format Development
Cultural Strategy
Lecture Series
Editioned Works

Selected works · 2022 — 2026

Projects in motion.

All works →

Collaborate · Community mural

Hägendorf 2100

What will our village look like in 2100? Around 250 pupils of Hägendorf primary school imagined its future — and painted it together as a 6 × 8 m mural in their school.

2026Realised

Collaborate · Public projection

Hägendorf 2100 — Aldgate Edition

A site-specific public projection outside Toynbee Hall in East London: the participatory utopian mural of 250 Swiss village children, translated into an urban context — part of Backyard Biennial 2026.

2026Realised

Create · Social sculpture

melt dome olten

A temporary dome on Olten’s Platz der Begegnung: three and a half weeks of readings, concerts, workshops, discussions and participatory theatre with around forty invited guests — free to all, in public space.

2024 — ongoingActive

Create · Light procession

Leuchtzug Zukunft

Thirty people carry a glowing advertising balloon from Ittigen to Bantigen near Bern — a light procession, inspired by Sisyphus, about the shared effort of shaping the future.

2025Realised

Create · Mural

Ursprung

108 circles in 108 hand-mixed blue-green tones on the 15 × 12 m wall of the Neubad in Lucerne — painted together with 27 volunteers who answered an open call.

2022Realised

Create · Light installation

Mitte

A glowing light body on the 2,907 m summit of Piz Uter, pulsing every night from July to October — carried up and down the mountain by volunteers.