Markus Engelberger turns spoken words and debate into eye-catching pieces of art. At the 50th St. Gallen Symposium, he captured the key messages of three days of dialogue on “Trust Matters”.

A unique feature of the St. Gallen Symposium is that it brings together people across generations, different sectors and all walks of life. Next to business representatives, entrepreneurs, and public policy-makers, civil society activists, researchers, and artists join the debates from St. Gallen and around the world. In over 60 sessions and various side events, their exchange of ideas has created numerous inspirations and insights.

Like in previous years, artist Markus Engelberger joined the symposium to capture key take-ways from the debates around the role of – and ways to strengthen – trust in business, politics, science and technology. Engelberger participates in meetings and conferences of all shapes and sizes, listens carefully to the unfolding dialogue, and captures essential messages in a visual way, on what he calls „Key Message Cards”.

“I use pictures because they work”, he says. “As you probably know from experience, pictures have the power to inform, affect, inspire, and seduce us. Marketeers, designers, and artists work with the fact that we are visual animals. Additionally, we are also storytelling animals. Stories help us structure, remember and convey information. Societies of all kinds have been using storytelling to pass on knowledge, wisdom, and culture. Unfortunately, most grown-ups hold beliefs around not being creative and not being able to draw. That´s why I help them out.”

The small-scale artworks are designed to empower event participants to show and tell their stories. And that´s exactly how they are being used. Experience shows that Key Message Cards are used as Visual Storytelling Tools in presentations, meetings, workshops, and reports. They turn attendees into ambassadors. The ability to show and tell stories turns out to be a very human and thus very powerful technology in the context of a highly digitised world.

You can find his illustrations throughout the magazine, as well as a selection of his key message cards on “Trust Matters” below. To learn more about his work, visit his website.