After almost two years of preparation, an event that was meant to bring together the worlds of art and charity for an evening finally took place on October 7^th. Dave had invited René Prêtre, Swiss person of the year 2009, to his hometown of Laufen. Mr Prêtre, who is chief physician for heart surgery at the Zürich children's hospital, owes his high profile to the charitable work he does with his foundation "Le petit coeur", which provides free heart operations for children in need in developing countries.

Around a hundred guests were invited to see the exhibition, which took place in a space of around 1000 m². The evening's highlights were Mr Prêtre's presentation, which offered fascinating insights into his charitable work, and the first showing of the performance "Tote Episode" ("Dead episode"), held in complete darkness with the aid of fluorescent paint.

The goals of the evening were to create a cultural experience that falls outside of the usual patterns, and to raise awareness for the problems in developing countries as well as encouraging personal initiative. In order to contribute to this personally as well, Dave will be donating 20% of the proceeds for any work of his that is sold until the end of November 2011 to "Le petit coeur".

Special thanks go out to Bank Valiant, who not only contributed significantly to the evening's success with their sponsorship, but also by taking on with great energy much of the organisational effort required to make it happen, as well as making a donation of their own to "Le petit coeur".

A few impressions of the event and performance can be found in the slideshow above. (Photography: Dani Altermatt, airwave.ch)

On January 28th, Dave's first ever performance in complete darkness took place. Before the eyes of an amazed audience, a large picture frame in a darkened room started filling with glowing visual fragments, which slowly came together to form complete images.

To achieve this astonishing effect, Dave worked with special phosphorus paints -- a technique he has previously used on a number of works, but never before as part of a performance.

This performance marked the opening of an exhibition of Dave's works at the Sprützehüsli in Oberwil, which will remain open until February 20th 2011.

The performance will take place twice more on Friday, February 4th (around 8 PM).

A few impressions of the first performance and of the vernissage can be found in the slideshow above. (Photography by Dani Altermatt.)


Exhibition
Sprützehüsli, Hauptstrasse 32, 4104 Oberwil, Switzerland
Friday 5 PM - 8 PM, Saturday 2 PM - 5 PM, Sunday 11 AM - 5 PM

The performance in Berlin has been moved by a few days and will now be held on Thursday, May 21st -- or Sunday, May 24th, if the weather doesn't play along. There's still some work left to be done until then, but so far, we're on schedule and confident things will stay that way.

At the beginning of the week, we arrived in Berlin, where Dave will be holding a performance only metres away from the Brandenburger Tor this weekend. This performance continues the story we began to tell in Athens earlier this year -- it is the second part of the "DC" project.

We won't give too much away, but we'll just say this much: This new performance will be similar in style to the performance held in Athens -- but not identical, and quite different in content.

The exact date of the performance depends on the weather and will be announced within the next few days.

In the meantime, we are still looking for voluntary performers! If you are interested or would like to learn more, please contact Ela Larboulette via phone (0041 79 703 28 49) or e-mail (info@fusionjourney.com).

Stay tuned for further updates!