The 2025 edition of Parcours is curated for the second time by Stefanie Hessler, Director of Swiss Institute New York. Art Basel’s free public sector is conceived as a curated exhibition that unfolds throughout empty stores and operational shops, a hotel, an underpass, an office building, the river front, and other quotidian spaces in Basel. Hessler’s curatorial concept “Second Nature” focuses on artistic projects that explore the blurry boundaries between nature and artifice, original and repetition, habits and interruptions through the unexpected, including sensory perceptions beyond the visual. Presenting over 20 ambitious, largely new and site-responsive projects by emerging artists alongside influential historic positions, this edition of Parcours is distinctly intergenerational. 

“Second Nature” is a term that refers to deeply engrained habits, customs, and rituals. In Parcours, the expression is explored through multivalent interpretations. Several artists question what is perceived as natural, examining apparently unchangeable patterns as well as the supernatural, artificiality, and subverted expectations. A selection of projects focuses on the incessantly proliferating loops of images and information as contemporary rituals shaping attitudes and desires. Various artists explore storytelling throughout the ages and media, from analog and animalistic fables to algorithmically powered narratives shaping nature and culture, or what is considered natural and true. Again others engage spaces charged with the interplay of personal memory and historic narratives. Finally, several projects address the valuation of bodies and life between flesh, commodity, and artifact.

For the full list of artists and galleries featured and further information, visit artbasel.com/basel/parcours.