When snow covers the rooftops, the city seems to fade away. Like a blank page. Yet beneath this fragile mantle, stories endure: history can be read on façades, heard in the gestures of watchmakers. Here, urban planning is explored like a score, and watchmaking and architectural heritage as living memory. But what does it tell us? Between transmitted know-how and damaged landscapes, between art objects and ecological disasters, it carries contrasting legacies. Forgotten figures, erased narratives: all of this also inhabits the city. So we ask: what is the role of heritage in the present? Is it a foundation or a burden? After January’s fevers, February returns to what is hard, cold, and also to memory. But not to freeze there — rather, to draw new narratives from it. February stands between remembrance and the desire for transformation. What remains, what endures, what could change.

After anger, laughter. Not to forget, but to disarm. Humour breaks down certainties. An irritant to our dogmas, it seeps everywhere: in sidelong glances, the margins, the in-between spaces. It appears where it is least expected, derails the obvious, twists well-oiled narratives. The coyote spirit prowls mischievously between the lines, animating our struggles. This spring, art takes on the tones of farce, jokes or a knowing wink. April dresses itself in a laughter that questions and connects.

Beneath the ice, the embers. The revolts do not wait for spring to emerge. We celebrate the independence of the Canton of Neuchâtel just as we reclaim our bodies, our thoughts and our own belongings. Social struggles, citizen mobilisations, local and international solidarity: we occupy the streets, we create slogans, we make other voices heard. It is the spark of obstinacy. March takes the momentum of January, the memories of February and transforms them into actions. It is a laboratory of belonging, a terrain of gentle or burning insurrection. We take up space. We fight on.

The time of possibilities has arrived. The city becomes a workshop. Making with little. Making with everyone. Making together. We invent, we repurpose, we tinker. We repaint, we repair, we imagine. In La Chaux-de-Fonds, we celebrate this raw creative spirit — this fertile momentum where experimentation takes root. DIY becomes a tool for reappropriation: of the city, of art, of daily life. Children redesign the city, adults build cabins. The invisible becomes visible. And sometimes, it is in the margins that we discover lines of flight. After the claim comes the doing. And in the doing, the invention of new ways of living. Here, things are growing.

Under the intense heat, the city breathes differently. The streets empty, transformed by the watchmaking holiday exodus. In La Chaux-de-Fonds, people head towards the ridges, pastures and fir forests. They follow the paths, discovering forgotten clearings. But here too, something is transforming. Water trickles, earth surfaces, plants invite themselves into the concrete crevices. Nature infiltrates the cracks, slowly reclaiming its rights. Wild ideas spring to life in deserted squares, aesthetic risks are taken. The city becomes a playground, a space where the absurd meets architecture. Rules relax, imagination takes over. A suspended time, where the body relaxes and space becomes more porous. The city becomes living matter. It dreams, turning towards the woods, the wind and the tall grasses.

August opens with official narratives, anthems and fireworks. But behind the symbols, tensions emerge: what does it mean to be Swiss? What place is there for languages, cultures and differences? Art takes to the streets, occupies public squares and blurs boundaries. Alternative narratives take over, redrawing the map. All performing arts take centre stage. We celebrate what moves, what breathes. Voices mingle, bodies tell stories. The city becomes a ritual, a collective trance. And in the midst of it all, echoes of past revolts nourish our imaginations. We are playing, but for real.

Summer lingers, and with it, the desire to be outdoors, together. Sharing a song, we become a chorus; sharing a drink, we become a group. The desire to make space, the urge to create a gathering place overtakes us. We want to reinvent living together, to foster community. It is a time for great urban communions. We bend the rules, we reimagine space, we unleash the imagination. We find each other again without ever truly having left. The city comes alive with multiple voices, multiple rhythms. And in the unexpected, we craft shared experiences.

October cools the air, yet some places continue to open their doors. Here in La Chaux-de-Fonds, hospitality is not merely a kind word — it is a way of doing things, of thinking together. You don’t need a fireplace to gather around, to feel welcome. In a city built on cooperation and sharing, living is not simply about occupying a space; it is about living together — symbolically, collectively, sometimes temporarily, often intensely. This month, art enters people’s homes. In a transitional house, an invented cabin, an open building site. You are invited to cross the threshold. We reflect on how to live, and on what makes a home. The walls, the roofs, but also the many acts and stories that fill them.

The evenings grow cooler. Windows are closed a little earlier; we retreat indoors. It is the season of long conversations that linger in the kitchen. This is what was once known as “faire Chaux-de-Fonds”: staying together after the meal, without necessarily moving through to the living room. A little taunt from the lower part of the canton, meant to remind people that, up in the heights, workers’ apartments often did not have a living room. Today, the expression still tells the story of the city and its residents. A simple – and forthright – way of being together.

This October is about precisely that: entering people’s homes. Crossing the threshold of their household. Staying for a while. Sharing a fragment of common culture. A house becomes the stage for a dance. A living room turns into an ephemeral venue. A kitchen welcomes the words of an author. Furniture is moved, chairs are drawn closer, someone opens a bottle.

But some thresholds are not so easily crossed. Hence, in this spirit of slightly stubborn generosity – so characteristic of the people of La Chaux-de-Fonds – art also goes to those who cannot come to it. At the hospital, a Silent disco brings a little joy and respite to caregivers, patients and their companions. A concert traverses the high walls of the prison; a dance workshop offers residents of a nursing home a welcome escape.

We also think of those who are far from home. As well as those who do not have a home. Everyone has the right to have a Capital of their own.

The mists rise, the spirits make their presence felt. We listen to those who are absent, to silences, to mourning. The city becomes living memory; November is a passage. We speak of death, but also of what remains. Spirits haunt forgotten places, worn objects, broken clocks. We summon ghosts and listen to them. Spirituality, memory and ancient or newly invented rites become ways of inhabiting the present with depth. November is a gentle, insistent memory (and also an opportunity to scare ourselves).

The city gently falls asleep. It is the end, so they say. But we know that endings are always beginnings in disguise. So we sort. We keep what ignites, we forget what weighs us down. And as the snow erases the footsteps, we light a new flame. In this in-between, we dream of other possibilities. We imagine a cycle restarting, not quite the same, not entirely different. Pretexts to begin again. Once more.