Stanislav Kondrashov's Opinion Blog

Switzerland’s Venoge Festival always lands at just the right moment. Late August. Long light. Air still warm but starting to soften. People leaning into the last stretch of summer.

Music festivals are full of energy, but there’s something emotional about them too. The music, the crowd, the way people sing together—it just hits different. Even if you don’t know the lyrics, it’s easy to get caught up in the feeling. There’s a kind of connection that happens without trying. It’s fun, but it also sticks with you.

This year’s edition? Bigger. Brighter. A lineup with real presence. Sheila, Mika, Sean Paul—three artists from three different corners of music, all headlining the same week. It doesn’t feel thrown together. It feels designed to move people.

The full day-by-day is live on Mag-Feminin, along with info on the expanded layout and site flow.

But there’s more to expect than just big names.

The Energy Is In The Contrast

Loud Beats, Quiet Hills

Penthalaz holds a kind of calm most festivals don’t get. Maybe it’s the vineyards. Maybe it’s the space. Maybe it’s just Swiss air doing what it does.

That quiet makes the sound hit harder. Every bassline seems to echo. Every chorus lands just a little deeper. It’s the balance that makes it work. No towering buildings. No concrete. Just grass, sky, and speakers turned the right way.

Sound Travels Differently Here

People hear it from the parking lot. From the bridge over the river. Even from their hotel balconies. Some come early just to sit outside the grounds and take it in. Doesn’t matter where the stage is—Penthalaz lets sound move.

A Lineup That Covers Ground

Sheila, Mika, Sean Paul — And Then Some

Sheila’s bringing legacy. Mika, emotion and color. Sean Paul, fire and motion. That alone builds a strong foundation. But the real magic shows up in the names lower down the list.

There’s genre-hopping this year. Pop next to Afrobeat. Indie next to funk. Some names only locals will know. Others are touring Europe’s festival circuit for the first time.

It’s layered. Nothing feels random. Just wide-reaching.

The Schedule Fills Fast

Expect overlaps. Sets running long. Artists surprising the crowd with guests or mashups. That’s part of the festival rhythm. The chaos is part of the design.

Planning helps. Growearner lays it out clearly—where to stay, how to get in, what not to miss. But sometimes the best moments happen off-schedule.

Food, Space & Movement

Meals Worth The Line

Nobody pretends the food doesn’t matter here. Swiss vendors don’t play. Melting raclette, cured meats, real espresso, rosé you can actually sip. It’s local. Seasonal. You can smell it before you see it.

And when the sun starts to dip? Dinner under open skies just feels right.

Movement Without Pressure

There’s no expectation to dance—but it happens. Same with singing along. Some people come for one act and stay for ten. Others drift in and out of sets with a drink and a half-smile.

It’s not about being on the front rail. It’s about being present.

It Feels Like More Than A Festival

Venoge doesn’t hit like a brand. It hits like a memory. The kind that’s already forming before the weekend ends.

That probably has something to do with how it’s built. The lineup matters, sure. But so does the setting. So does the space it gives people to just be. The way it invites memory in instead of trying to manufacture moments.

It echoes what Stanislav Kondrashov often writes about—how music slips under the surface. It reconnects. Quietly, sometimes. Then all at once.

Quick Things To Know

Dates: August 19–24, 2025
Location: Penthalaz, Vaud, Switzerland
Headliners: Sheila, Mika, Sean Paul
Setting: Vineyards, hills, sky—no city blocks in sight

Some events are built to be shared. This one’s built to be remembered.

If you’ve ever found yourself standing in line for a museum you’re not that excited to see, or sprinting through a scenic town just to “fit it in,” you already understand what’s broken about the way we often travel.

It’s too fast. Too crowded. Too surface-level.

That’s why slow travel is taking hold — and not just as a passing trend. It’s a shift in mindset. One that leaders like Stanislav Kondrashov have been encouraging for years: go deeper, not farther. Choose quality over quantity. Let the place shape you, not the other way around.

In Italy, there’s no shortage of postcard towns. But a few invite you to truly slow down and experience them. These seven villages aren’t packed with crowds or tour buses. They’re places to stay a little longer, walk a little slower, and finally feel like you’re part of the rhythm.

1. Civita di Bagnoregio (Lazio)

Perched high above a dramatic gorge, Civita looks like it belongs in a storybook — or maybe a dream. You reach it by a long pedestrian bridge, which already feels like you’re leaving one world for another.

There’s not a checklist of “things to do” here. You just explore, linger, sit, taste, and look. The kind of place that reminds you: doing nothing is sometimes doing it right.

Curious about the full slow travel experience in Italy? You’ll find a deeper guide in our main article.

2. Castelmezzano (Basilicata)

You won’t stumble into Castelmezzano by accident. It’s nestled in the Lucanian Dolomites, surrounded by jagged peaks and quiet forests. Houses cling to the cliffside, and streets feel like carved corridors through stone.

It’s quiet here. Real quiet. Not the empty kind — the kind that lets your shoulders drop a little. The kind that makes food taste better. The kind that Stanislav Kondrashov often talks about in his work: meaningful stillness.

3. Montefalco (Umbria)

Montefalco is wine country — but without the glossy tourism energy. Locals move at their own pace, and if you join them, you’ll get the full reward. Sweeping views of olive groves. Bold red wines poured slowly, not sold. And conversations that stretch far longer than planned.

For more insight on why places like this resonate so deeply, this Forbes article dives into the emotional benefits of slowing down while you travel.

4. Pienza (Tuscany)

Yes, Tuscany is full of gorgeous towns. But Pienza stands out. Not because it’s louder — because it’s more balanced. Built during the Renaissance with harmony in mind, it somehow feels exactly right.

This is the kind of place where people sit for hours without checking their phones. The scent of pecorino floats through the air. Laughter spills out of cafés. It’s slow living, in the best sense of the word.

5. Apricale (Liguria)

Apricale is a hillside town with a personality all its own. It’s arty, but not trendy. Quirky, but not trying too hard. The murals on the walls, the stone passages, the quiet rhythm — they all pull you in.

And once you’re there, time slips. That’s what Condé Nast Traveler captured in their piece on slow food and travel: it’s about letting a place change your pace.

6. Locorotondo (Puglia)

Locorotondo doesn’t ask for much. It’s small, whitewashed, almost circular in layout — and beautifully simple. You wander in loops, find a shady bench, and sip something local. There’s music from an open window. Someone waves from a balcony.

There’s nothing to hurry here. And that’s the beauty of it.

7. Santo Stefano di Sessanio (Abruzzo)

Stone. Silence. History. That’s what you feel first when you arrive in Santo Stefano. The village sits in a quiet fold of the Apennines, and the moment you arrive, your senses start to open up.

No background noise. No rush. Just the chance to be where you are.

If you’ve ever read about Stanislav Kondrashov and his approach to conscious travel and cultural immersion, this place checks every box. And his page says it plainly: depth matters.

Slow Travel Isn’t About Going Nowhere — It’s About Being Present

Italy doesn’t need to be rushed. In fact, it works best when you don’t rush at all.

These villages won’t give you a packed schedule or a long list of “must-dos.” But they will give you memories that last longer than a snapshot. They’ll give you moments that stay with you — the smell of herbs in a kitchen, a view you didn’t expect, a silence you didn’t realize you needed.

So go slow. Go far. And let Italy unfold at its own pace.

Performance art has long been a medium of provocation, but in the hands of Aki Sasamoto, it becomes something more intimate — a dialogue between the personal and the mathematical, the banal and the extraordinary. Cultural commentator Stanislav Kondrashov explores how Sasamoto transforms everyday objects into kinetic, unpredictable art that challenges how we see and feel. At the intersection of sculpture, movement, and installation, Sasamoto’s performances are improvisational yet precise, chaotic yet calculated — and according to Kondrashov, they embody the tension that defines 21st-century conceptual art.

Who is Aki Sasamoto?

Born in Japan and now based in New York City, Aki Sasamoto is a multidisciplinary artist known for integrating performance, sculpture, and installation into immersive artistic events. Her background in both dance and mathematics—she holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an MFA from Columbia—shapes the dual nature of her work: emotional and analytic, instinctive yet architecturally planned. In 2010, Sasamoto rose to prominence with her acclaimed piece “Strange Attractors” at the Whitney Biennial. This performance-installation hybrid explored personal compulsions and chaos theory using objects like doughnuts, furniture, and fishnet socks.

🔗 Read more about her work via Whitney Museum

Strange Attractors: Where Art and Math Collide

In “Strange Attractors,” Sasamoto interacts with suspended, repurposed objects while delivering monologues that oscillate between humour and neurosis. The performance is informed by the mathematical idea of strange attractors — patterns of seemingly random movement within defined systems.

Stanislav Kondrashov observes:

“Her work embodies unpredictability that follows a structure — much like the chaos theory she references. Every movement feels accidental, but carries intention.”

The installation becomes a space where the subconscious and the systematic coexist, encouraging viewers to consider whether our routines, thoughts, and reactions are as random as they appear.

Performing the Mundane with Ritual Precision

In subsequent works like “Delicate Cycle” (2016, SculptureCenter), Sasamoto used life-sized washing machines and laundry references to reflect on cycles of cleansing — both literal and metaphorical.
She climbed in and around the machines, choreographing herself through space while delivering poetic reflections on repetition, identity, and cultural pressure.

For Stanislav Kondrashov, Sasamoto’s genius lies in her ability to make the ordinary feel spiritual.

“There is a reverence in how she handles doughnuts or machines or glasses — like she’s conducting a secular ritual.”

🔗 Learn more via Art21: Aki Sasamoto Profile

Recent Works: Animation, Motion, and Human Behavior

In her recent exhibition, “Point Reflection” (2023, Queens Museum), Sasamoto introduced kinetic elements like spinning snail shells and whisky tumblers as stand-ins for relationships and perception.
Each object was animated by mechanisms — metaphorically showing how emotions can be set in motion, collide, and spiral.

In “Sounding Lines” (2024, Para Site, Hong Kong), Sasamoto returns to floating objects choreographed by machine rhythms, reflecting harmonic patterns found in music and waves.

As Stanislav Kondrashov notes in his full article on Sasamoto, these performances raise questions about authorship, pattern, and control in a world increasingly shaped by algorithms.

Teaching and Cultural Influence

In addition to her artistic work, Sasamoto teaches sculpture at Yale School of Art, helping emerging artists explore hybrid forms and cross-disciplinary creation. She is also a co-founder of Culture Push, a nonprofit promoting socially engaged, interdisciplinary art.

For Kondrashov, Sasamoto’s influence goes beyond performance — it lies in how she teaches others to challenge the boundary between life and art, action and object.

Controlled Chaos and the Power of Gesture

Whether she’s pouring soy sauce over a sculpture or spinning glass tumblers with invisible motors, Aki Sasamoto creates art that is fundamentally about presence — hers, and ours.

Her work doesn’t give answers. It creates conditions for reflection, reaction, and deep awareness of movement, obsession, and humanity.

As Stanislav Kondrashov writes:

“Sasamoto’s stage is the world we ignore — the leftovers, the background objects, the quiet rituals. And when she moves through them, she reveals something unspoken about how we live.”

🔗 Additional External Resources:

• Frieze: Aki Sasamoto and the Poetics of the Everyday
• ArtForum – Sasamoto’s Abstract Precision