On co-founder David Allemann is standing on a rocky trail 45 minutes outside Basel, where the 2022 edition of town’s annual art fair is fully underway. While among the world’s biggest galleries hawk their wares and collectors drop tens of tens of millions within the air-conditioned exhibition centre that hosts Art Basel, he addresses a small group of sweaty hikers in On sneakers, gathered by the sportswear label for a rambling trip through the Swiss countryside. 

Over the course of several kilometres, we’re going to “hack” our bodies, Allemann tells us, to rewire our brains through physical movement. In this manner, he adds, movement is comparable to creating or art: the disciplines are “intrinsically linked” by a way of discovery. Walking through nature – or participating virtually, via one in all On’s motion-activated Sound Walks – this concept is a striking and optimistic counterpoint to Art Basel’s 289 gallery booths, where artworks are, most of the time, viewed through eyes stuffed with dollar signs.

Founded in 2010 by former Swiss Ironman champion Olivier Bernhard, alongside Allemann and Caspar Coppetti, On has an unlikely backstory linked to a garden hose, which Bernhard attached to the only of his trainers to experiment with a recent form of cushioning. Today, it’s this tubular structure on the bottom of each On silhouette that offers them their cloud-themed names. For competitive runners there’s the Cloudboom Echo, for instance, while more recently On launched a more maximalist shoe, dubbed the Cloudmonster. On each, multi-directional cushioning absorbs shock, then compresses to supply a springy take-off. Besides literally feeling such as you’re walking on clouds, this tech helps athletes run at significantly lower pulse rates and blood lactate levels, in response to a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

For this hike, the group is wearing the Cloudaway, a “light all-rounder” that can take us through the forests of Bubendorf, passing through lush meadows and steep valleys on a tour led by Gianni Jetzer, the prolific curator whose work has spanned several Swiss museums, in addition to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. The primary stop? A copse of 500-year-old oak trees, which – as Jetzer explains – survived being made into railway sleepers because their acorns were used to feed local pigs. Here, he notes, nature and culture are intertwined. 

This theme is much more obvious at the subsequent location: a waterfall that splashes down onto a big boulder in the course of the forest. On top of the boulder sits rising French artist Salomé Chatriot, respiratory right into a metallic, conch-like machine that glows with every breath. A graduate of the celebrated Swiss Lausanne University of Art and Design, Chatriot often builds installations that fuse organic processes, equivalent to respiratory, with the metaverse, via a background in computer programming. For this performance, though, she seems entirely in tune with the actual world. For several minutes there is simply the sound of the water spattering onto the rock, of birdsong, and of the group’s respiratory – heavy from the hike – slowing to sync up with the regular glow of the machine. Later, Chatriot will tell us that she had to think twice in regards to the material of the alien-like braid she wears, in order to not disturb the flora of the rock. 1000’s of worms that she found living within the ecosystem also grow to be a component of the performance.

As suggested by the ecological theme of the walk thus far, On pays careful attention to its environmental impact as a worldwide brand, aiming to “design high performance products with the smallest possible footprint because of innovations in circularity, materials, and production methods”. Considered one of the label’s primary concerns is the sustainability of the materials that go into its shoes, that are currently created from recycled rubber and plastics, though On continues to work on recent, more sustainable materials, including a foam cushioning made out of carbon emissions. This 12 months, it also launched its first 100 per cent recyclable shoe, the Cloudneo, which is created from castor beans and available through the Cyclon program, a subscription based circularity program where you’ll be able to send back your shoes to be recycled. All of its leather can be vegan, because, because the brand explains: “Leather production is unfortunately a unclean business… It causes chemical and wastewater pollution and likewise animal cruelty.” 

This brings us to our final destination: a cleaned-up cowshed outside Bubendorf’s Wildenstein Castle, where the Swiss conceptual artist Sandra Knecht is staging one in all her signature “happenings”, an elaborate meal with an all-vegan menu. Hot and hungry from all of the walking, the group tucks into bowls of cold, fresh almond milk, followed by vegan kebabs, cherry “soup”, and homemade herbal schnapps (we’re in northern Switzerland, in spite of everything). You is likely to be wondering why an award-winning artist is playing chef, but that is nothing recent for Knecht, who has long merged cooking and art-making to create immersive experiences that encourage diners to query the origins of their food. Up to now, this has included a feast made up of dishes dedicated to powerful women, from Audre Lorde, to Beyoncé, to Nan Goldin and Patti Smith. This time around though, it’s more about honouring local produce, and appreciating the cows within the neighbouring barn without the guilt of eating one in all their relatives.

If there’s one thing that On wants us to remove from this trip, it appears to be that art isn’t only for selling, or hanging on a gallery wall. It will possibly also fill your stomach, make you are feeling such as you’re walking on clouds, and heighten your awareness of your natural surroundings. Any surroundings, for that matter (in affiliation with On, Jetzer has also run tours of Parcours, the segment of Art Basel that fills town with site-specific sculptures, interventions, and performances). Art can spill out into the world, and – most significantly, On’s founders suggest – it could possibly get you moving, to forge that all-important connection between a healthy body and a healthy mind.

Art Basel could also be over now, but you’ll be able to proceed to explore the connection between art, movement, and nature through On’s Sound Walks, 20-minute recordings that mix natural sounds and ambient elements triggered by motion, in virtual environments based on Art Basel’s three cities: Basel, Miami, and Hong Kong. View more here.