“I am living in troubled times,” wrote Thierry Raboud in his anthology Crever l’écran. Yet he still practises his art “despite it all.” A poet, musician and keen observer of our broken world, he likes to blend sounds and senses – or, as he puts it, “to write by ear”. His multi-layered poems are both auditory and visual: he types them out on a typewriter, arranges them on long rolls of paper, and turns them into musical performances that combine elements of lyricism, noise music and jazz. Through their poetic power and urgency, they serve as calls to resistance and manifestos for a new collective vision of the world.
Raboud began working on Écographies during a residency at the Jan Michalski Foundation. It consists of a series of “ecological writings” that evoke various glacial landscapes through a blend of analogue and algorithmic codes. The series includes Martyrologe, a new interpretation of the list of Switzerland’s lost glaciers, and Feu la mer I et II, a diptych based on a typography art book published in 1982.

Thierry Raboud (b. 1987, Valais) studied literature, philosophy and musicology at the University of Lausanne and the University of Fribourg. He also studied guitar at the Lausanne Conservatory (HEMU). A journalist, musicologist and poet, he has received prizes from the Pierrette Micheloud Foundation and the Leenaards Foundation and is a winner of the Tirage Limité award. Since 2022, he has chaired the judging panel for the Swiss Literature Award, presented by the Federal Office of Culture. He currently lives in Corseaux.

Musée valaisan des Bisses. Thierry Raboud, On savait pas © Olivier Lovey