What is the power of radical stillness when living in a fast-paced, increasingly hyperconnected world?
In this session, the works of renowned conceptual and performance artist Marina Abramović are explored through a lens of intentional slowness, examining what it can teach us about empathy, culture and the future of human connection.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and Mirjam Varadinis introduced Marina Abramović’s new project, “the bus,” a 30-minute “mobile exhibition space on wheels” designed to operationalize “radical stillness” in a hyperconnected world. Building on Abramović’s immaterial, time-based practice—such as her 512-hour Serpentine project where visitors surrendered phones and “the performance happened really between Marina and the viewers”—the bus turns stillness into a repeatable intervention. Participants lock away phones and watches, enter in groups of up to 12, and follow guided exercises from the Abramović Method. The goal is not spectacle but attention: “In a world that rarely pauses, perhaps the most transformative act is simply to stop and listen.” Speakers positioned stillness as a leadership and societal capability, countering short-termism and fragmented attention while creating shared experience across divides. Varadinis cited Abramović’s Glastonbury intervention, where 250,000 attendees held seven minutes of silence, as evidence that collective pause can build reflection and empathy even in unlikely settings. After Davos, the bus will travel, beginning with Zurich in partnership with the University of Zurich to explore digital detox and mental health, especially for younger audiences. The premise: individual shifts, multiplied, can produce collective impact.
Ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon. My name is Joseph Fowler, and I'm the head of arts and culture at the World Economic Forum. A very warm welcome to all of you that are joining us here in the fusion room in Davos. And a very warm welcome to everyone who is joining us online. Before we start this afternoon's session, I invite you very quickly to check your phones to make sure they are switched to silent so we don't disturb the session once it begins. This afternoon's session is called Radical Stillness. Our speakers will be Hans Ulrich Obrist, the artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries, and Miriam Paradinas, director founder of Marina, of Miriam Paradinas art agency and the curator of the bus. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a very warm welcome to Mr. Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Good afternoon. Thank you all so much for being here. And thank you for joining us online. And thanks so much, Joseph, for this very kind introduction. And congratulations again to you for the cultural programme. Still feeling transformed by last night's concert and art transforming us is, of course, the topic of what we're going to discuss today in relation to the work of Marina Abramovic and the bus, and of course, also the topic of the spirit of dialogue. Andre Hoffman yesterday said, dialogue means open your ears, listening and contributing. And this idea of Marina Abramovic is radical. Stillness has a lot to do with listening, and it's something which has played a very central role in my work as a curator, because I do listen to artists. I have daily conversations with, artists have recorded so far, about 4000 hours of conversations with artists, which kind of forms an archive. And Marina is one of the artists I have talked to most. We have probably recorded more than 40 interviews so far in very, very many locations on a mountain top, on a bullet train in Japan, in a pharmacy, in a monastery. It's a kind of infinite conversation. So I'm going to give you a bit of context and background to the bus. And the curator of this project, Miriam Berardinis, will then follow and give you a detailed explanation, and we hope you can then all join the experiment. At the end of the talk, the bus is not going anywhere. You can enter the bus and join the journey and always said we need to learn to listen again. Of course, listening is a transformative act. Stillness, as John Cage taught us, is a state of attention. It means also that we actually stop to impose meaning. We become still listening to everything which is already happening. And that's really what is happening in the bus, but is also what is happening in a project we did at the serpentine with actually Marina many years ago, almost ten years ago. Here you see the pavilion every summer we have a pavilion in front of the Serpentine in London. It's an annual commission, and we then hand over really the gallery and work very closely with artists to create a total work of art, a kind of construct. So we literally gave Marina the key and allowed her to realize her, really radical, transformative project to slow down, to focus and to give us access to multiple planes of experience. She stripped away all the elements which we usually have in an exhibition. So there were no objects, there was no furniture, there was no lighting for her. It had to do with the Sanskrit, Tibetan idea of suchness. It's an emptiness which is also full. People had to leave behind their bags, their mobile phones. They were really invited to listen. They couldn't take any recording devices into the gallery. And the performance happened really between Marina and the viewers. Marina was there for 512 hours non-stop. She didn't miss a single hour and met every single visitor. Tens of thousands of people. She directly interacted with them. And what was particularly moving is that she also put many visitors to bed so that they could fall asleep in the exhibition, which kind of is an incredible childhood memory of our parents putting us to bed. And that's really what happened. If we think about here a handwritten little note Marina wrote during this project, which I think relates also to the bus. You're going to hear more about it from Miriam. And here you see, really it was just Marina and the visitors interacting, being together, this idea of togetherness. We live in a very polarized time. Art can make a major contribution to bring people together who otherwise wouldn't come together. One of the many reasons, I think, why we need art spaces more than than ever before. And of course, Marina's work is legendary. There is a long history back to the late 60s, early 70s. She was born in 1946, in Belgrade, is the great pioneer of performance art and has always tested physical and also mental limits of performance and the human body. I'm going to show you another project, actually, which proceeds in a way, the bus here in Davos, and that is her Art Vital manifesto, which was related to a project she did with Marina, used to collaborate with Uli, and they basically lived in a bus for several years. They were nomads in a camper when, and for them, the camper van was not only their home, but it was actually also a tool, a device for their many performances. It was a second hand Citroen van, which they have painted in black, and there was almost nothing in it a mattress, a stove and of course their incredible dog who was with them. Here you see the bus and they drove with this bus all over Europe and created performances. Spent many years living in it. The dog Alba, driving across Europe, recalling these years, Marina thought of the total freedom she had for her. It was the happiest years of her life, she said. And, in a way, it was the manifesto of Art vital, which really brought it together. It also was the idea of leaving the museum. It was the idea of actually carrying out into society, which I think today, again, is a very important thing. We're going to discuss this later in the conversation. It's something John Dewey pointed out in Art as experience, such a fundamental book from 1934. Where do we talked about this idea that we, in a way, need to always think how these very refined and intensified form of experience, which art is, can be shared with the world also in everyday events, how we can actually bring art and life together. Something which Marina has been doing really for many, many decades. Here you have another image of the bus and this is the perfect transition. Now you're going to hear about the bus in Davos. It's a 30 minute experience. So it's important that you liberate in this very busy week 30 minutes. Because in a way art is also about liberating time. The artists are Philippe Parreno and Pierre Week once created a society to liberate time, and I think we live in a moment where this is more important than ever. We have to liberate time. So let's liberate time. And now give a very warm welcome to Myriam Varanids.
Thank you very much for this introduction, and I'm very happy now to take over. And my part will now be essentially focused on the bus. It's actually this new project that is having its premiere today. So you're really like the first ones to get to see it, to get to experience it. So don't miss it. It's today, the first day. And and it's actually a part of the official arts and culture program of this year's annual meeting, the bus. You'll see it now. So it's just simply called the bus. So that's the title of this new work. And the bus is actually an old school bus that you see here. And it's an old school bus that is transformed into a mobile exhibition space on wheels. And it is a part, like mobile sculpture and part like mobile meditation capsule. I would define it, and it combines many of the key ideas that we already heard now from Hans Ulrich of Marina's work. So which is basically the artwork as an immaterial experience. It's all about the experience. Marina always says, I you give me your time and I give you an experience. So as Hans-Ulrich said already, like, please liberate these 30 minutes and you will have an incredible and unforgettable experience. Transformative experience, I would even call it then the notion of stillness and the sensation of time is also key to the bus, especially relevant in today's society. Of course, when we're all always linked to digital tools and like always exposed to digital noise. So to reconnect and kind of focus on the present moment. And it's also in this moment and reconnecting with yourself and the present moment. And the boss's boss offers these experiences outside the museum's walls. It brings art to the people and invites them to sit in silence and pause, and the boss will then stop in various locations after Davos, and each will create a unique encounter. Then, with a specific context and the audience that will be there and it will especially that is really important. Unite people of different backgrounds. So here again, we're with this, like the idea of the dialogue and bringing people together through art, which is key to this project. In a time that is defined by uninterrupted connectivity and escalating demands of for attention, the boss invites you to begin an inward journey, one that privileges awareness of over efficiency, reflection over reaction, and presence over performance. Marina would say it in these words in a world that rarely pauses, perhaps the most transformative act is simply to stop and listen. It sounds simple, but isn't under the constant pressure to perform more, faster, and better today. How strong such a moment of silence can be showed Marina's intervention in June 2024 at the Music Festival Festival in Glastonbury, in response to the many crises and conflicts in today's world, she asked the festival festival's 250,000 250,000. Imagine that number attendees to spend seven minutes of absolute silence with her. Not an easy task. When you think of the state of mind people are in at a pop concert. If ahead of the event, Marina said, they're drinking, they're taking drugs, the weather is nice, and I asked them to be silent and to reflect on the state of this planet, which is really hell right now. But the energy relationship between the audience and Marina was so strong that it worked out, and the people in the audience joined in this collective moment of silence that opened up space for reflection and also empathy. On the stage stood Marina in an impressive dress that was designed by her friend and former Burberry creative director Riccardo Tisci. When her arms were outstretched, you see it on the picture. It opened up into a giant peace sign. Like the collective intervention in Glastonbury, the bus is also grounded in the belief that unity has become a fragile and rare resource in our conflict ridden times, and that we need to create space where common ground can be remembered or found. The bus aims to have an impact in this upside down world. This is also why Marina and I approached the World Economic Forum with the idea to launch the boss here in Davos, and we are happy, very happy to have found a mutual interest from the forum side. And of course also with Joseph, a great partner to to realize this vision. The annual meeting is one of the rare global stages where leaders, decision makers and influencers influential thinkers gather. We invite these figures. This means you here in the audience to step on the bus, leave your digital device behind, and collectively gather in a moment of pause and reflection. Of course, the boss or art in general cannot change the world. We don't have to expect miracles, but art has the potential to open up new perceptions on things and transform you on an individual level. When visiting the bus, you'll experience this transformative energy. We did that too yesterday when we visited the bus, right, Hans Ulrich, you come out in a completely different state of mind and imagine if this slight individual shift is being multiplicated by all the participants here in Davos. This can lead really to a collective impact in the end. And the bus is therefore an experiment in how silence can reshape perception and how stillness can shift collective consciousness. The instruction is very to participate is super simple. You can read it here. The bus is not going anywhere. You enter the bus and then you're invited for an internal journey. The journey duration is 30 minutes and then upon entering the bus. The participants are required to lock away their phones and watches, initiating a brief yet meaningful digital detox. A maximum of 12 persons are allowed at the same time. Inside the bus, you'll be guided by a video and Marina's voice to follow some exercises of the Abramovic Method. That's a method that she initially developed for herself to prepare for long durational performances. One of the exercises that Marina invites you to do in the bus is to look at the primary colors for a specific amount of times, so you look first at red for a specific amount of time. You look at yellow for a specific amount of time, and at blue this is only part of the journey. I won't disclose more because otherwise you won't. You won't. Don't want to come, but you have to come and experience it yourself after, Davos it's the next stop will be in summer in Zurich, where we will collaborate with the University of Zurich and its researchers. And the focus there will be on topics like digital detox, mental health. And while these issues affect many, they're especially urgent for young adults and adolescents. And we and we in collaboration with Marina, we will develop specific workshops for this group of audiences. But throughout the summer, the bus will be open to the wider public in a central park in Zurich. And this collaboration collaboration with university shows also the potential of the bus as a tool for transformation and research in the in the educational field. So, Further stops are being planned for the future but have not been decided yet. But we of course, we aim to also go outside Switzerland, to Europe, and ultimately hopefully also to other parts of the world. And in case one of you is interested in booking the bus or getting to know more about the bus or supporting the bus, I mean, don't, don't hesitate to reach out to me. So now it's time to ask Hans-Ulrich back on stage again. This was my part. On the bus, please.
Thank you. Applause for Miriam.
Thank you very much.
Yeah. It's fascinating. I think that the bus you're showing here, the 512 hours at the serpentine, there were unrealized projects of Marina she talked about for many years. And if you think about the art world, you know, artists are always invited to do similar things. They're invited to do a museum show, a gallery show, sometimes to be in a biennial, but actually very often artists have projects outside that framework, which I always feel very important to actually kind of invert the process and think with artists, what would they love to do? What are projects within the parameters of the art world, you know, cannot happen? The kind of idea of mapping unrealized projects and then realizing them. And that, of course, can happen in the museum, as you could see with the fabric and 12 hours, Marina transformed the institution. I mean, she learned a lot, but we learned a lot. It was transformative for the serpentine, to have her 512 hours interacting with all our staff, for such a long time, interacting with the public every single day. It's happening now again, if you're in London in the next two weeks. We did a similar experience with the painter and artist Peter Doig, who wanted to transform the gallery into a house of music, bringing his record collection. You can come and listen to his records, look at his paintings. Many musicians, from David Byrne to Linton Kwesi Johnson to Lizzi Bougatsos, commonplace as guests. Their record collection, there is Poetry. There is going to be a dance performance by Michael Clark. So all the disciplines come together. It's like the realization of a very utopic idea Peter always had. But then, of course, artists have a lot of ideas outside the museum, which is the bus here leaves the museum. Miriam is going to take it on a long tour, as you could hear. And, you know, mapping so many artists, unrealized projects over the years, I've asked artists this question again and again. It's interesting. I've analyzed it. Actually, more than 58% of the artists unrealized projects, I've sort of mapped out for, for, for outside exhibition space are public art projects. And, very often these are projects which are not events. They are not short term. They are long durational projects. And I think that's anyway something. I mean, the philosopher Roman Catholic talks a lot about this idea. Not only that, we have to liberate time. His new book he spoke, actually, he told me about last week, is going to be about time and how we can liberate time so deeply related to your project. But he also talks about the necessity to go beyond short termism. We live in a society where so many things in the political cycle, in the economic cycle, in the artistic cycle, in all worlds are connected to short termism. And if you want to address the big challenges of the 21st century, the environmental crisis, the climate emergency, but many, many, many other things, we need to go beyond that short termism and have a sort of a long durational perspective. French thinker Fernand Braudel talked about la longue durée, long duration, and I think it's fascinating that many artists right now have such long durational projects. You know, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, rather than to do an exhibition, does gardens. She collaborates with AI on pollinator gardens. She collaborates with pollinators. And it's super fascinating. These are long term projects. And I mean, your project that brings it back to the bus is something which starts here in Davos this week. And I mean, we and you are the very first ones to to see it and experience it. But it's then going to be very very public and go a bit like the bus of Marina at the time all over the world, all over Europe. First, can you talk a little bit about this long duration of your project?
Yes. I mean, as you said, it was really like during our when we, Maureen and I were collaborating on a large retrospective, in Zurich at the, at the Kunsthaus Zürich. And, there we kind of found out our kind of mutual interest in, like, expanding outside, like the museum borders, right to, to like to create moments where you can experience outside art outside the museum walls. And so the bus was something that was there already, as you said, like for quite a while. And it links back to her own kind of biography, as you saw like with the the van that she has been living in. But then this idea of bringing art to the to the people was something I was very fascinated with, something I've been thinking about also for quite a long time, as a person who had been working for a long time within an institutional framework, but always kind of also curated outside, like for biennials or like, like other exhibitions where you use, let's say, the public space as a material. So there we kind of connected very much on this idea of, of bringing art to the people. I remember in Switzerland there was like when I was a kid, there was like a supplying like bus for, for Migros, which is like a supermarket. Right. So they would come and bring the bus would come to your, to your village or wherever you would live, and you could buy groceries, whatever you need. And I feel this idea of bringing, like having this bus and having art as a really kind of a very existential kind of element of your life, like the same importance as when you buy milk or bread, you know, this kind of this is something I'm very fascinated with. And so then the somehow the, the conversation started and, and as you say, it's only it's only the beginning. We don't really know where this journey is going to lead us. But it's a fascinating kind of moment now to see like it's. Yeah, combining these ideas of, of liberating time, the value of time, of kind of deceleration, like all these, like key, key, topics we have to deal with and I'm. Yeah, I look forward to, to further develop. And it's also interesting because Marina has founded her own like institute where she already did a lot of, let's say, itinerant kind of projects in, in, in, outside the museum parameters and also her idea of what a museum is, is actually very much connected, much more than to the, to the architecture, but to the energy within the museum. So for her, the museum is basically a space which is more like a power central, where you have this exchange of energy and and this is what is happening now also, in, in the bus. So that's what you felt also in your of course, I mean, the, the exhibition you did with her was one of the first where she eliminated all material kind of elements, like it was really about the experience with the audience at the time. Right?
Yeah. She didn't want to have anything in between her and the audience. No objects. It was really her and and and the audience for the for all these hours. And I think interesting also that it had a lot to do, like with the experience we had yesterday with time. Now it goes kind of back to Roman Catholic. That time is liberated when it's when it stops being something you chase. And I felt that very strongly, which is why I hope you can all make this experience. And also in a way, we can kind of reclaim time in a way from this urgency, when time always feels scarce, when attention is fragmented. And I think that's again how art can liberate time. And in a way, of course, when this bus is going to go around Europe first and then maybe around the world, there are going to be so many people not from the art world who, you know, who might never actually encounter art, who can have this transformative experience. And I think that's also our task today. Curatorially and as institutions is to go beyond the doors of museums and bring art into into society. I mean, the other day I came back from a trip and went to the office to the Serpentine in London really early, and, a taxi driver, said, you must work there because nobody will go there at 7 a.m.. And he said he wanted always to tell someone who works there the story of his daughter, because they kind of came on a walk on a Sunday, you know, in Kensington Gardens. And all of a sudden the daughter ran into our pavilion, the architecture commission we have every year. And, they couldn't for half an hour get her out of kind of mesmerized. And, you know, that was was 6 or 7 years ago, you know, and, he wanted to just tell us that now she's studying architecture. She found her vocation through that. And he also wanted to tell me that he was really only because we had open doors. There were no doors. She just could run in because, you know, he had already his parents had told him museums are not for people like us. And he had told the same, you know, actually who his daughter. So she would never have made it. And as we believe and can see, I mean, we could see this with the concert last night, we can see it with the bus here. Art can lead to this transformative experience, and we want to create this for everyone. And that's why I think it's important that we go with art into society. And I love this idea that, you know, this bus can go also into neighborhoods who might not have access necessarily to to art. It's something in Somali. The, the Italian designer with, with a you know, he did this with a bookshop. He designed a bus and brought amazing books into older neighborhoods in Milan and in Italy. So I do think, yeah, we need more mobile exhibitions.
Yeah, I think it has a great potential to go out, out to the people, out of the protected framework of a museum with art and have this, this direct impact. I mean, I also experience I once like a very kind of life changing moment when I did one of these projects in the public space, and then this lady who had never seen like, like never would never go to a museum, but like, was kind of mesmerized, as you said, by an artwork that was there and then kind of discovered her love for art and, and, and and completely changed also the way of how she would look at her own environment. This is what art can do. Also like completely change your perception of of your your surroundings and yourself. And this is what the boss is also also doing. So, I think we can actually, open up also to the, to the floor, like if you have questions, we're happy to, to answer.
Questions or commands.
Commands. Yes. There is a microphone.
Hi. I'm just wondering whether this method, has resonated with a particular audience more than, than, than another, you know, demographic wise. Just curious.
Like, you mean going outside the museum walls and going.
No, just generally by age or by community or,
I, I think it is like when you go outside the museum space, you reach out to basically everybody from children to older people, like all, all backgrounds. And this is also what the strength is of such an encounter. So you basically reach out to people that not normally or, go to a museum in first place. So this is where the strength lies of these.
The transformative experience.
You mean? Okay.
Has it has it been different for different demographics? I'm just curious.
Oh, I.
Don't really know.
Yeah. It's obviously difficult to, you know, because each experience is so different. But it's an interesting question how we could actually, you know, very concretely measure transformation. It's it's a it's a very interesting question. I mean, I would say that, it's it's definitely a very, you know, transgenerational experience. I mean, we see when we also built these pavilions in the park. And of course, Marina's exhibition was at the serpentine in the park. We really see people of all generations kind of interact with that. And very often also people meet who otherwise wouldn't meet. I think that's another thing which is very important is that we go beyond this idea, the silos of the different parts of society who wouldn't meet. Those are the different disciplines. And that's, I think, again, what museums and exhibitions can do. They can break down these silos and bring people together who otherwise would, would never meet.
Okay. We have very little time left. So if anyone has another comment or question.
A very straightforward question why Marina is not here? Usually she's doing installation and she had an exhibition. The artist is present. She's always present. How come she's not here for the launch of this, experience?
It was for unforeseen circumstances. Not possible for her to to be here. But she told us that she is here by telepathy, so she's with us. She was in the room. I also wanted to. Just because we have a few seconds, say there is the unrealized project of Marina. She always wanted to realize that maybe we can, before we then all go to the bus, quickly mention that she wanted to tell us. You know, when I asked her about the unrealized project, now that the bus is realized and the foreign travelers are realized, she dreams of a large plot of land with waterfalls, with rivers, animals, and vegetation. Here again, a long duration project connected to gardens. She wanted her to be 25 huts without any electricity. They'll have one simple bed, one chair, one table for total isolation. I want them to be decompression chambers. For these decompression chambers you have to start with nature. Then the decompression chambers can travel to big cities and be part of department stores, part of the housing or hotels. You decompress from any kind of sound. You're just with nature. But I would like to build this on a big scale, so every continent has one. And maybe that's the perfect segue now to you inviting everyone to the park, which is a decompression.
It is actually also a kind of decompression chamber. And I would also, for those who have time, we do a special opening hour. Now, for those who want, we can go together to the bus. And for those who cannot make it now, it's going to be open every day, like 830 in the morning to 1030 in a half an hour rhythm, and then 130 to 330 in the afternoon. But please come for those who have time, come now with us. And we do a collective kind of walk there and experience together. That would be really beautiful. Thank you for joining.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.