[Exhibition 005] ‘FÜU DI FREI’ by Mark Madness

FÜU DI FREI
Mark Madness
05.04-19.04.2025

What does freedom mean in a society where everything is planned? Where is rebellion to be found when the structures of control are so effective that they are barely perceptible?

‘Füu di Frei’ - which in Bernese dialect can be translated as “feel free” - is a crack in this imaginary. Conceived by photographer Mark Madness, this project unfolds as a book and an exhibition to follow the footsteps of a collective that defies norms not out of provocation, but out of necessity: that of imagining other ways of being in the world.

The exhibition is presented as a non-linear space that invites the visitor to get lost and reconstruct. Analogue photographs, fragments of a short film in development, collected objects and questions printed with UV ink configure a sensory landscape that challenges our perception.

Set in a Swiss context, 'Füu di Frei' connects to a long tradition of disobedience in art. From Zurich Dadaism, which erupted as a cry against reason and order, to the Situationist movements that used the city as a space of resistance and expression, the work is inserted into this genealogy of silent disruption.

In a country where order and predictability are almost a mark of identity, this work opens cracks. It asks us: What does it mean to be free when everything works? Is it possible to inhabit a country without obeying its narrative? And perhaps most importantly, is transgression a form of belonging?

Füu di Frei" does not offer easy answers, but rather invites us to question norms, appearances, the very idea of what is "normal". For, as many have argued, the act of creation begins where obedience ends.