Creative Kick-off with ZHdK: Alessia Belluscio creates the Key Visual 2026
Alessia Belluscio won the ZHdK competition for the Art Garten Hotels 2026 key visual. Her design impressed the jury and will define the visual identity of the upcoming edition.
Students from the Fine Arts Department at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) created the Art Garten Hotels 2026 key visual as part of a competition. The competition offers young artists the opportunity to engage with the project early in their careers and develop their own visual interpretation.
The judging has now taken place. In addition to representatives from Garten Hotels Switzerland, Carla Homeister (Bad Ragartz) and Linda Peter (vitamin2) were part of the jury. Pascal Sidler and Swetlana Heger-Davis from ZHdK provided advisory support. Together, they reviewed and evaluated the submitted works. Our sincere thanks go to all jury members for their great commitment, their professional expertise, and their thorough review of the submitted works. We also thank all students who submitted a work and participated in the competition with creative and diverse approaches.
Alessia Belluscio and her work «Dispersal I»
Alessia Belluscio's work, among others, emerged from the competition. The artist from Zurich is currently studying Fine Arts for her Bachelor's degree at ZHdK. In her artistic practice, she explores personal culture and traditions, as well as networks and systems in nature. Time plays a central role in this, both in material processes and in conceptual considerations.
Her work «Dispersal I» is an initial experiment in spore printing with winter fungi. The fungi release their spores directly onto the paper, creating fine, detailed, and sometimes hazy traces. This results in organic patterns that visualize dispersal processes while simultaneously developing a poetic visual language. While spore prints were originally used primarily in a scientific context for identifying mushroom species, Alessia Belluscio employs this technique as an artistic process. This shifts its function from an analytical tool to a medium that makes natural processes aesthetically tangible. «Dispersal I» forms the starting point of an ongoing series of works. In future works, the artist plans to combine her spore prints with tree ring prints. The goal is to create a visual and printmaking symbiosis between fungi and trees and to re-reflect on their relationship in the forest.
Alessia Belluscio provides further insights into her work on Instagram: alessiaaa_art
Collaboration between ZHdK and Garten Hotels Switzerland
The competition marked the first collaboration with the Department of Fine Arts of the Zurich University of the Arts as part of the Art Garten Hotels initiative and represents an important step in the project's further development. The exchange with young artists opens up new perspectives and brings fresh, independent approaches to the visual engagement with art and nature. We look forward to continuing this journey together and further deepening our collaboration in the future.
Insights and Outlook
The Art Garten Hotels are constantly evolving, offering new insights into the connection between art, nature, and hospitality. In the future, we will continue to present selected projects, artists, and developments related to the exhibitions. If you don't want to miss these insights, feel free to sign up for our newsletter to stay informed about current articles, background information, and events.
