A place for all
The antique warehouse «Cheesmeyer» in Sissach is now a culture- and community-center!
In the Spring of 2022 a colorful team of local culture-enthusiasts banded together and founded the association «Verein Kulturhaus Cheesmeyer». The goal: we want to establish a «place for all» in the centre of Sissach. In the course of an intesive formation process the association was compartmentalized into three sub-groups: Gastronomy, Culture and Community.
The Gastronomy group reopened the cosy café-bistro cheesmeyer on the ground floor of the warehouse and was able to quickly make a name for itself. We are happy to be welcoming in an ever growing customer base. For our product range we follow the guidelines «local», «seasonal», «organic» and «freshly prepared».
The groups Culture and Community are headed by experienced professionals of the Swiss cultural scene. Our goal is to enrich the cultural portfolio of the town of Sissach, and represent it regionally and nationally. In June we have already had the honor of producing a roundtable-discussion event on the topic «Solidarity for Ukraine», and in September we were happy to guest-host a production by this year’s edition of the renowned theater festival Theaterfestival Basel.
At our association’s openig party, which was loaded with musical acts and featured an art exhibition, we saw almost 200 guests, who have made it clear to us that there is a lot of interest and expectation for more cultural activity in Sissach and its region. Highly motivated by this feedback we went directly to work, and drew up a plan for a dense cultural program with numerous events until the end of this year. And we have even started planning for 2023.
Our event agenda stands out due to promotion of many different interests, backgrounds and generations, both within our team, and in our town. While always aspiring to create a space for creative exchange.
Talks & Discussions
The event «Solidarity for Ukraine» was presented by the sociologist Ueli Mäder. From this collaboration we developed the idea of a discussion series on the topic of «For a peaceful Future». It is now a fully developed series of 14 events with different sub-topics and prominent guests talkers. It will run once a month until the end of 2023. It was important to us, to incorporate local ties and topic-relevant projects, where possible. Normally also combined with a musical intervention.
The Univerity of Basel is also presenting an event, bringing their format «Uni-Talk» to us, and discussing on the topic «The village’s challenges». We want to keep these kinds of events up and invite more talkers, discussers, as well as authors onto our stage.
Concerts
It is one of our highest wishes to have a platform for the local music scene, and especially to newcomers. With the artists «florias», «Way Out West», «Moreaux» and «Shayo» we managed to offer our stage to 4 young and up-and-coming musical acts. This newcomer format called «live&local» will be a regularly reocurring event in our agenda of 2023.
We also have a classical music series planned in collaboration with the local cellist Elisa Siber. She will begin the series with works by Johann Sebastian Bach. All further concerts with different formats and musical formations are planned for 2023.
Theatre & Performing Arts
The «Bühne im Dach» is our stage on the fourth floor of the «Cheesmeyer» warehouse. It sits underneath the roof and combines the historic looks of the old warehouse storage facilities with a modern stage infrastructure. With a maximum capacity of 50 seats, it is especially suitable for smaller theatre formats and stage shows. We’ll have the two nationally known slam poets Dominik Muheim and Marco Gurtner perform one of their formats, and the theatre «Theatergarage Basel» directed by Serena Wey will present a guest production. More of the sort is planned for 2023.
Visual Arts
12 local visual artists are transforming our big ex-warehouse display windows in the café-bistro into art installations. The series, which gives every artists a month of display time, is fixed until August 2023. We are convinced that new projects will arise from this collaboration. Wee see it very important to inspire visual artists to display installations and exhibitions in our spaces so that the place becomes more vivid and inviting, and the artists have more chances for their work to be seen.
Community
The socio-cultural projects are taking shape. We organised a get together of knitting and mending experts, who will show and convey their skills for one afternoon to anyone interested, free of charge. Also, our Gastronomy team will host a big sunday family brunch, and there is a second-hand clothing market taking place on a Saturday afternoon, accompagnied by live music.
Event agenda October/November/December 2022
CONCERTS
20.10. Martin Schaffner & Alexandra Lüthi - Schweizerisch-amerikanische Fiddle Tunes aus Olten
03.11. florias - Singer-Songwriter/Folk Sounds aus Basel
20.11. Kaffeekantate - Humorvolle Werke von J.S. Bach - mit Clara Brunet (Sopran) / Lisandro Abadie (Bass),Barockensemble und Elisa Siber (Projektleitung)
08.12. live&local - Frische Sounds aus der Region - Way Out West, Moreaux & Shayo
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PERFORMING ARTS
10.11. LESEN FÜR BIER (Poetry Slam) Das Kultformat zum ersten Mal im Baselbiet mit Dominik Muheim & Marco Gurtner
01.12. Die Filmerzählerin (Theater) Eine Szenische Lesung von Serena Wey
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TALKS
Für eine friedliche Zukunft (Gesprächsreihe) - Wie sieht eine friedliche Zukunft aus: global, regional? Und was tun wir persönlich dafür? Der Soziologe Ueli Mäder moderiert musikalisch begleitete Gespräche.
27.10.2022 Haben oder Sein? - Gäste: Henning Kurz (Religionspädagoge) und Daniela Dolci (Musikerin/Dirigentin). Musik: Martina Rick, Mauricio Silva Orendain (Les Art Scéniques). Projekt-Hinweis: Veng Music Foundation (Tevfik Sahin, Songül Ataman Arslan).
24.11.2022, 19.00 Wie Sport verbindet - Gäste: Daniel Woker (eh. CH-Botschafter am Persischen Golf), Walter Mundschin (ex. Libero FC Basel und CH-Nati), Johanna Aeschbach (Fussball-Trainerin), Wolfgang Bortlik (Schriftsteller-Nati), Peter Tschudin (alt Handballer u.a.) und Moritz Kamber (alt Eishockeyaner u.a.). Musik: Lukas Rickli ab 17:00.
15.12.2022, 19.00 Ukraine – Hintergründe des Krieges Gast: F. Benjamin Schenk (Prof. für Osteurop. Geschichte, Uni Basel). Projekt-Hinweise: Freiwillige Flüchtlingsarbeit (Charlotte Luchsinger) und Theater in Konfliktgebieten - mit der Ezidischen Bevölkerung im Shengal/Nordirak (Anina Jendreyko). Musik: Ludmila Kholodtsova
17.11. Challenge im Dorf (Uni-Talk) Wie sieht die Zukunft ländlicher Gemeinden aus? - In Kooperation mit der Universität Basel
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COMMUNITY
12.11. Kleidermarkt Interessiert an tollen Outlet- und Secondhandkleidern? Dann bist du beim Kleidermarkt im cheesmeyer richtig. - mit Live-Musik vom Jazz-Duo mit Isabelle Ritter und Ben Zahler.
17.10. Offenes Singen Singen ist heilsam und macht glücklich – probiert es aus! Alle Stimmen sind willkommen. Einfache Lieder aus aller Welt mit Ariane Rufino dos Santos am Akkordeon.
20.11. Familienbrunch Kommt und geniesst ein feines Frühstück im cheesmeyer! Auf die Kinder wartet ein herbstlicher Basteltisch und ein Spieleggä.
21.11. Stricken, Flicken, Sticken Komm einfach mit deiner Striggete vorbei zum Stricken in Gesellschaft, oder mit einem Kleidungsstück zum flicken (von Hand).
22.12. Cheesmeyer Weihnachtsfest Lasst uns froh und munter sein und uns recht von Herzen freun! Schlemmereien, offenes Singen, Weihnachtskonzerte, Glühwein schlürfen und Guetzli essen.
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VISUAL ARTS
4 Schaufenster- 1 Jahr- 12 Künstler:innen Jeweils einen Monat lang gestalten Kunstschaffende aus der Umgebung die Schaufenster des cheesmeyers. Vielfalt und Überraschungen sind garantiert.
Oktober 2022 - Stefan Zemp November 2022 - Margrit Menne Dezember 2022 - Sylvia Heuser / Ruedi Tschudin
What we need YOUR support for
We are not making it easy for ourselves, and we are making a huge effort to live up to our aspiration of creating a diverse cultural agenda for Sissach and its region.
Sending the association «Kulturhaus Cheesmeyer» on its maiden voyage without an up-and-running event agenda was never an option. That’s why we couldn’t and wouldn’t wait to take action, and therefore payed pretty much all of our labour and investments in advance, from our own pockets.
A professional realisation of our proposal involves: ⁃infrastructure (sound light and stage) ⁃web-design, graphic design, promotion ⁃documentation (video and photo) ⁃fair wages for our Culture and Community teams’ professionals ⁃appropriate salaries for all the artists
With your contribution, you make the realisation of this year’s event agenda and the planning of next year possible.
