Since 1996, the Swiss city of Lausanne has been taken over every first week of December by the free visual arts festival “Les Urbaines,” transforming it into a laboratory for new daring aesthetics and cultural practices. On this occasion, a variety of performances, interactive installations, shows, exhibitions, screenings and concerts take place in unconventional spaces all over the city, reinterpreting the urban landscape.

This edition of the 3-day festival will feature more than 40 projects and present visual arts projects by Mélodie Mousset, Berry Patten, Zimoun, Pedro Wirz, Samuel Levack and Jennifer Lewandowski (among others), concerts by Grouper or Lexie Mountain and performances by Alma Söderberg, Minimetal or Robert Steijn.

For me, the highlight of this edition is the exhibition at Curtat-Tunnel —a former bus stop turned into an art space— during which French artists Juliette Bonneviot and Aude Pariset will physically test their seductive imagery by letting it decay in an aquarium over the course of the festival, uniting duration and creative methodologies to create in real-time a new work. In the same venue, the London-based collective LuckyPDF will use new technologies and a wide range of media to play with the notion of consumer goods and their artistic interpretation. Not to be missed is also Hannah Perry‘s moving image collage, which questions collective memory and identity – on show at DémArt – and enigmatic duo Hype Williams‘ Saturday night concert. (Natalie Esteve)

From the November 30 to Sunday December 2.