The feminist artist collective Hulda Zwingli was founded during the 2019 Women’s Strike and operates under the identity of a fictional Zurich native. The name combines two legendary figures from the city on the Limmat: Hulda Zumsteg (co-founder and owner of the Kronenhalle) and the Reformer Zwingli. Since its founding, the collective has anonymously explored gender inequality in the art world and in public spaces. In doing so, Hulda Zwingli discovered that there are only two monuments to women in Zurich – a finding that sharpens the eye for what is absent.
In the Arboretum stands a pedestal bearing the inscription “Fatherland, only to you” – devoid of a statue for decades and the site of numerous informal performances. Hulda Zwingli also temporarily laid claim to the pedestal during the 2023 Women’s Strike. For The Zurich Archipelago, they are doing so again in an official format, picking up a debate that has been long underway: whom and whose history do monuments represent – and who gets to decide?
The original sculpture on the pedestal in the Arboretum, Vivat Patria (1898) by Baptist Hoerbst, depicted a triumphant athlete holding a raised trophy, known at the time as the “Gymnast Monument”. In the late 1980s, the sculpture was repeatedly knocked down. The heroic image of masculinity and the national rhetoric of the inscription “Fatherland, only to you” were no longer in keeping with the times. The fragile material could not withstand the repeated falls, and the figure was put into storage while the pedestal was left in place.
With minimal intervention, Hulda Zwingli reinterprets the monument: by placing the three letters M·U·T (German for courage) over part of the inscription, the collective transforms “Vaterland” (Fatherland) into MUTterland (Motherland). The empty pedestal also becomes an accessible platform for all – a space in which courage is put into practice: anyone who wishes may climb up and, for a moment, occupy a place that has long been denied to many. In a city where almost all statues depict men, the pedestal becomes a setting where public memory is not set in stone but can be collectively reinterpreted by breaking down hierarchies.
Step onto the pedestal, take a selfie, share it on social media with the hashtag #zuricharchipelago, and tag @kioer.
Location
Arboretum
near General-Guisan-Quai 20,8002 Zurich
Visit
June 7 – July 12
The exhibition is free and open to the public
Action
Sunday, June 14 · 3 pm–5 pm · Arboretum
MUTTERLAND NUR DIR! [MOTHERLAND TO YOU ONLY!] An action by Hulda Zwingli as part of the Feminist Strike
Foto Credits: Hulda Zwingli, MUTTERLAND, spontane Aktion zum Frauenstreik, 14.6.2023 (Foto Hulda Zwingli)