As the beat pumps and lights flash over Confederation Park, I stride pleasantly to the Ottawa Art Gallery’s (OAG) Dada for Switzerland party. I seem to be going against the stream of pedestrians heading to Winterlude and I wonder if I’ll be alone at tonight’s event?
But the gallery is packed and the smell of raclette lures me in, producing what Proust’s madeleine did for the author: I am sitting around a camp fire on a starry summer night, surrounded by the Swiss Alps. The summer camp of my youth is a place inside my mind that’s obviously tied to melted cheese, and my stomach twists in hunger as I wait in line to taste the raclette (which is a type of Swiss cheese you melt and scrape off the racler) with potatoes and pickles.
The Swiss Embassy in Canada sponsored the event, inviting Rideau Centre’s new store, Nespresso Boutique. Ignoring the environmental impact of their cups, the coffee is creamy and delicious. In another room, wines are being served and I am reminded that the viniculture is incredibly varied for such a small country.
The connection with Dada is a loose one in this event. In fact, apart from a stand where you can make a print with the letters “d” and “a,” and a small room with a black and white movie, there aren’t any works that relate to the art movement.
An alphorn or Alpine Horn player and folk dancers top the evening off with a distinctively traditional depiction of the country that’s marked my childhood. I admit I appreciate tradition as much as anyone else, but only in small doses and my search for contemporary Switzerland as I remember it—the architecture, the art, the music— is not the point of focus.
No irony in my tone when I say it makes me wonder about the kind of parties the Embassy of Canada must throw in Bern. Close your eyes and see poutine and bacon (or Alberta AA steak?) seduce culturally-curious party goers as a movie on the 1913-1918 Canadian Arctic Expedition airs in one room. Brewed beer is tasted beside talented Inuit throat singers and the soiree ends with a fiddle player that accompanies traditional folk dancers from Quebec.
Why not stretch the imagination a little further, to the absurd? For a modern touch, imagine a Blackberry stand in the corner promoting the latest smartphones—or maybe not, maybe the Embassy of Canada would pick another company. Yes: picture The Bay giving away free stuff beside a proud and brief history of the fur trade? Brilliant.
Tangents over, let me be frank. I’ll most certainly attend next year’s party for the atmosphere and food. It always coincides with Winterlude and thus far the OAG has featured three countries known for their winters, including Russia, Norway and this year’s Switzerland. On my way out, I hear Italian, Serbo-Croatian and German and I am once again biting into a Proustian madeleine, into far-off memories outside of my intellectual grasp.
