Basel Social Club:

Chocolate Tease, Haircuts, and an Impromptu

Tattoo

article by Gigi Surel

Lately, life’s felt like one giant question mark, so I did something spontaneous: booked a flight to Basel. No heavy plans – just art, hot dogs, and a sense that I might find something unexpected.

Basel Social Club, where I spent the majority of my time, isn’t your typical satellite art fair. This year, it took over a former private bank and turned it into a labyrinthine playground of more than 100 rooms – installations, screenings, performances and even a sauna.

The energy was electric:

hundreds queued in the heat, all for the thrill of curated discovery.

One unforgettable stand-out was Faisal Abdu’Allah’s Live Salon, – a joint project by Harlesden High Street and Kendra Jayne Patrick. In the middle of all that marble and hush, Faisal set up a working barbershop, cutting hair and chatting with visitors. It turned an everyday ritual into something radical about identity, intimacy, and cultural memory. A tender resistance tucked inside walls built for discretion and generational wealth.

Faisal was lovely to talk to. He said he had no sense of FOMO and planned to just chill after his last day of haircutting (which was Thursday). That inspired me more than any panel talk. I left the parties fashionably early and watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer in my Airbnb instead.

The ‘chocolate tease’ moments came in a few forms. Derosia presented new works by Witt Fetter, including a large painting titled Swiss Miss (2025), complete with cartoonish alpine innocence: red cheeks, snow, sweetness, national branding.

In a different room, a sculpture by Sandra Knecht– a large ice block titled My Land Is Your Land – was surrounded by animal-shaped chocolates from Laflor Schokolade. We weren’t allowed to eat them, of course, but the smell was incredible.

Knecht’s installation echoed her long-term project Home Is a Foreign Place, which blends culinary performance, photography, sculpture, and interspecies care. She lives on a farm in Buus with her partner and a rotating family of animals – many of which she considers co-authors in her work. For more than a decade, she’s documented this life in an archive of thousands of photographs and created sculptures, recipes, and performances that ask what ‘home’ really means.

In Basel, her work felt like a whisper from that life.

But the most me moment? I got a tattoo.

A real, permanent one.

It happened at stick n poke, a project curated by Alana Alireza and Geraldine Belmont, featuring hand-poked tattoo designs by over 20 artists – Sylvie Fleury, Shuang Li, Sarah Abu Abdallah, Chino Amobi, and more.

I chose a jagged, minimal form by James Bantone, who blends humour with discomfort – bodies are reassembled, coated, masked –

sometimes literally, sometimes symbolically.

In the festive courtyard, I ate more hot dogs than I care to admit. They were tiny, outrageously overpriced, and completely worth it. Thanks to a list of allergies, I spent zero on alcohol – so I call it a draw.

Basel Social Club was loud yet intimate, chaotic but reassuring. In a moment when everything feels uncertain, it gave me one small act of clarity.

A little story etched into my skin.

I would absolutely do it again. (But next time, I’m getting the manicure.)