Swiss Benevolent Society
Culture Committee
P.O. BOX 2137
Chicago, IL 60690-2137

Culture Committee

Chair: Marie-Simone Pavlovich, Ph.D.
Members: Sam Burckhardt, Ursula Furrer

"Culture is what is left when everything else has been forgotten."
(Françoise Sagan)

The goal of the Culture Committee is to sponsor events related to Swiss culture in order to reinforce the ties between the Swiss and the American people of Chicago, and in so doing its goal is to, ideally, reach the greatest number of people.

2005 Report of the Culture Committee

The Culture Committee held and supported various projects in 2005; which was very exciting. What was the most exciting, however, is that many were attended by our members.

• At the Goethe-Institute of Chicago, we supported a number of events (4) that presented an array of Swiss writers (Franz Hohler, Christian Gasser, Literaturlenz event) or speakers (former Ambassador Defago).

• We worked in close collaboration with the Alliance française -and the Swiss Consulate- to present a number of programs at the Journées de la Francophonie : a film evening, an afternoon with the chansonnière Celina Ramsauer, and also the soirée commune. (March )

• At the University of Wisconsin Foundation for the Elvehjem Museum of Art, we made a contribution to help restore a painting attributed to Leopold Robert entitled : Seated Bandit with his Loot. Later in the year (October), a small delegation from the SBS (Ursula Furrer, Barbara Frei, Marie-Simone Pavlovich) attended the official unveiling of the restored painting. In attendance were also Maria Saffiotti-Dale, the Curator of the Museum, and Mr. And Mrs Jean-Pierre Golay, residents of Wisconsin, members of the SBS, and instigators of the project.

• As usual, we paid for the First of August badges that were sold at the First of August celebration organized by the Swiss Club.

• We had an extraordinary performance by artist Kienberger at the Chopin Theatre in October. People who attended got a wonderful feeling from this event.

• We also made contributions to the Renaissance Society that is organizing an exhibit of a Swiss artist, Mai-Thu Perret, in the Spring 2006, and to Roosevelt University that has the project of digitalizing the archives of Rudolf Ganz.

Of course, we have a number of events scheduled for this coming year (2006), and the most immediate are :

• Literaturlenz at the Goethe-Institut that will present Alain Claude Sulzer on April 10.

• The Festival de la Francophonie taking place March 18 to 25 at the Alliance française.

• The Mai-Thu Perret exhibit, The Crystal Frontier, from April 30-June 11 at the Renaissance Society.

As always, we are very pleased with our excellent collaboration with the Swiss Consulate in Chicago –that feeds us a lot of events, and is a source of vibrating ideas-, and, as always, I would add that we hope to see many of our members attending our new events.

Respectfully submitted
Marie-Simone Pavlovich Ph.D.
Chair, Culture Committee
February 22, 2006 Chair, Culture Committee