Based in Bern, Switzerland, Andre Abravanel’s practice explores the intersection of artistic inquiry and rigorous ethnographic research, fostering new perspectives on material culture.

Andre Abravanel's interdisciplinary work spans fine art, documentary photography, academic design research, and cultural projects like Xamanae, Bigote Verde, and La Tostadora. His rigorous methodology combines visual ethnography and archival studies, exploring material culture and human experience with a quiet, observational approach. This site showcases his artistic inquiries, fieldwork notes, and published writing.

Rooted in a deep understanding of visual anthropology, Andre’s practice emphasizes critical inquiry and minimalist material studies. He engages with institutions and collaborators to push the boundaries of artistic and academic discourse, fostering new perspectives on cultural phenomena and their visual representation.

ABOUT

André Abravanel

 My practice moves between anthropology, design, photography, craft and food systems. I am especially interested in how people create knowledge through practice, how they organise collectively, and how design can become a tool for transforming these relationships.

My path has not been linear. Before turning to anthropology and design, I spent many years working in fields connected to micromechanics, jewellery and hands-on craft. That experience left a deep mark on the way I think: for me, to know something also means being able to touch it, build it, take it apart, modify it and observe what happens.

I studied anthropology and conducted fieldwork in several international contexts. Later, I expanded my practice into photography and visual media. Photography became not only a form of representation, but also a method of observation: a way to record gestures, spaces, objects and relationships that often remain invisible in purely textual descriptions.

I am currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Design at the Bern University of the Arts (HKB). My research lies at the intersection of design anthropology, practice-based research and action research.

One of the central questions in my work is how to narrow the distance between theory and practice. Rather than seeing theory as something simply applied to reality, I am interested in exploring how practice also produces knowledge, and how that knowledge can return to theory and transform it.

A large part of this research takes place at Bigote Verde, a restaurant I founded in Bern and use as a living laboratory. There, I can directly observe questions related to organisation, work, participation, decision-making, suppliers, waste, quality and food culture.

My research explores how a small food system can be transformed through participatory processes. One possibility I am investigating is a transition from a traditional structure centred on the owner towards forms of organisation in which decisions, responsibilities and benefits can be distributed differently.

Observe → interpret → theorise → intervene → observe again

I am also interested in this process from an epistemological perspective. Who produces knowledge within an organisation? The researcher? The designer? The workers? The customers? The data? The machines? My interest lies in creating situations in which these different forms of knowledge can meet.

Another important area of my practice is coffee. Through La Tostadora – Nano Rosterei, I work with small batches of coffee from different origins and experiment with roasting, traceability and production processes. Coffee offers another system through which to study relationships between territory, technology, craft knowledge and economics.

Photography continues to accompany all of my practice. I work with both digital and analogue processes and am currently exploring darkroom techniques, printing and material experimentation. I am interested in using the image not only to document projects, but also as an independent form of research.

These fields—restaurants, coffee, photography, craft and design—may initially seem separate. To me, they belong to the same inquiry. Each asks, in a different way: How is knowledge produced through making things?

My practice seeks to create spaces where research, design and everyday life can meet, and where theory is not the end of the process, but a tool that continually returns to practice.

SUGGESTED WEBSITE STRUCTURE

01 — Background
Anthropology · Craft · Photography

02 — Practice
Art · Visual Anthropology · Design Research

03 — Current Research
Theory ↔ Practice

04 — Living Laboratory
Bigote Verde

05 — Projects
La Tostadora · Photography · Research · Writing

How can practice produce knowledge—and how can that knowledge transform practice?

This core principle guides all visual ethnography and design research, ensuring a deep, unbiased understanding of each subject's ecosystem and the nuanced stories it holds.