The Theory Of Everything

Through a year-long collaboration with hotels under The House Collective group, Swiss artist Katja Loher demonstrates the interconnectedness of philosophy, sustainability, vision and craft.

- Zara Zhuang

To reinforce the relationship between art and design and The House Collective, the group of hotels has launched its first art program, “Encounters Across Cultures,” with “Seeds of Life” as its theme for the year and Ms. Katja Loher as the program’s first featured artist. The collaboration comprises four consecutive installations that will be showcased within The House Collective’s four properties — contemporary Chinese art in The Opposite House in Beijing, cross-disciplinary tastemakers in The Upper House in Hong Kong, fashion design in The Middle House in Shanghai, and Chinese traditional masters in The Temple House in Chengdu — “an initiative to break down barriers, celebrate collaboration and strengthen those ties with the artists communities in the cities in which we live,” according to Mr. Toby Smith, managing director of Swire Hotels, which manages The House Collective.

Bringing the four concepts to life is Ms. Loher, a Swiss multidisciplinary artist based in New York recognized for her style of video sculpture, which fuses video and object. “The idea is to free video from technology,” Ms. Loher explains. “Art is a language and I wanted to free the video from the device so you can enjoy it as an art form.”

We talked to Ms. Loher during the launch of “Encounters Across Cultures” in Beijing about the project and her philosophy as an artist.

What is the theme unifying all four installations?