Matís d’Arc

Matís d’Arc is a rope and BDSM workshop leader, organizer and occasional performer who works between Zurich and Berlin. He is the founder and managing director of luhmen d’arc, the label behind the regular bondage jam and the shibari workshops at Serrat(u)s Bodywork in Zurich.

Background

The about page of luhmen d’arc says he studied literature and worked in cultural production for contemporary music and dance theater, work that took him from Munich to Argentina and, in 2010, to Berlin. There, according to the page, he discovered rope and BDSM on forays into the city’s fetish and queer kink scene and found an experiential home at Schwelle7, the Berlin space run by the choreographer Felix Ruckert. The page names no individual rope teachers. It sets out his conviction that conscious, hands-on engagement with the body, intimacy, sexuality and BDSM is a source of pleasure and can also open a route to understanding and developing one’s own personality.

luhmen d’arc

He developed luhmen d’arc with Klara Luhmen in Berlin in 2013 as a label that conceives and produces workshops, performances, lectures, jams and play parties, and since 2016 he has lived and worked in both Zurich and Berlin. In Zurich its rope program is based at Serrat(u)s, a bodywork studio that has opened its doors to rope since 2016; archived event pages also show jams and guest workshops at the atelier sihl13 between 2022 and 2025. Serrat(u)s says Matís offers jams, workshops, private lessons and individual sessions there.

The Bondage Jam Zürich is an open Sunday-afternoon practice that the organizers compare to a tango milonga. About every second date begins with a short introduction to basics, safety and consent for first-timers, and every two to three months a FINTA or a queer edition is held. The events run in German and English, with tickets on a sliding scale. The Shibari Basics series combines an introductory day, floorwork workshops on Japanese-inspired tying that also work on body awareness and communication between partners, and partial-suspension courses; a 2023 listing describes it as five parts that can be taken in sequence.

The label has also brought guest teachers to Zurich. In 2023 it invited Tamandua and Briki to teach a four-part Progressive Shibari Series, one weekend every three months, starting in July with the principles of suspension work and taught in English.