Isabel Piniella
ZHdK Research Tours The Future Behind Us: Swiss Oil Experience
Description
Oil’s presence is invisible, yet it drenches everything around us. At a time when the future of oil is up for debate —amid promises of an energy transition, record levels of crude extraction, and robust profits for oil and gas companies— this archive tour examines the collision between early ecological concerns and the efforts of oil companies to shape socioeconomic narratives through cultural production. Focusing on Switzerland’s trente glorieuses period —from the postwar years to the 1973 oil crisis— the tour explores how oil was represented in visual culture to support the myth of progress. It centers on two key archival sources: a 1949 film by the Shell Film Unit and the 1956 exhibition Welt des Erdöls at Zurich’s Kunstgewerbemuseum, also sponsored by Shell. To ground these representations in their local context, the workshop also draws on the research and archival materials of the Schweizerisches Sozialarchiv, offering a socioeconomic and historical perspective. Together, these elements interweave history, culture, and energy politics through a distinctly Swiss lens.
Meeting point: Schweizerisches Sozialarchiv Stadelhoferstrasse 12, 8001 Zurich
2 hours | EN
Bio
Isabel Piniella Grillet is a Swiss-based cultural analyst and postdoctoral researcher at the Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent in Paris. She completed her doctoral studies at the Institute of History at the University of Bern, within the Global Studies Program. She holds both a bachelor's and a master’s degree from the Pompeu Fabra University and the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where she specialized in history, philosophy, and aesthetics. Currently enrolled in the Cultural Critique, Curatorial Studies program, she is driven by an interest in rereading history through artistic practices and the essay-exhibition format.
