Schools

From 27 August to 15 September 2024:
Collective exhibition When Images Take Care

The Centre de la photographie Genève presents the collective exhibition When Images Take Care. It brings together the works of twenty-three Swiss and international artists and photographers, When Images Take Care explores the ways in which image-making can become a form of caring – caring for oneself and for others, for one’s community and its histories. Among the many forms and meanings that the relationship between care and images can take, the exhibition specifically looks at the equally intimate and universal issues of grief and mourning, the tenderness of family relationships as well as its silences, and social issues of visibility and representation through the reclaiming of one’s own history and the creation of activist images.

When Images Take Care highlights the power of the photographic image as a tool for empowerment and emancipation, allowing people to shape their own history, identity and destiny.

The first part of the exhibition focuses on the role of images in the construction of individual, intimate and family narratives, often linked to bereavement and loss or to disappearance, secrecy, illness, and disability. Here, care is situated in narratives crafted with images, narratives to make sense of one’s experience in all its difficulty and sometimes brutality. Photography allows to express grief and confusion, vulnerability and doubt, but also tenderness, gentleness, attachment and grace. There is often something fragile and delicate about the works brought together in the exhibition. The image is at once witness to a particular moment in the process of assimilating and making sense of lived experience and a vehicle to share it. By touching on major experiences of the human condition, these individual narratives invite us to a reflective and contemplative experience of caring in all its tenderness and preoccupation.

The second part of the exhibition is dedicated to collective narratives. This section looks at the notion of caring through the visibility and representation of certain communities, and their links with forms of activism. Particular attention is paid to social and civic movements in Switzerland, notably against racism, homophobia, and sexism, and to the militant and documentary dimensions that images can assume in these contexts. Here, photography is often playing an integral role in shaping collective memory and documenting histories. Alongside these more resolutely political uses of photography, other projects make visibility, and the overturning of preconceived ideas about certain groups or experiences, a matter of care. The image is mobilised for its representational power, but also for its capacity to restore a certain form of empowerment.

With Vincen Beeckman, Soumya Sankar Bose, Aline Bovard Rudaz, Rebecca Bowring, Margaux Corda, Siân Davey, Lina Geoushy, Anne Golaz, Beau Gomez, Sabine Hess, Aimée Hoving, Laure Alabatou Reina Huguet, Youqine Lefèvre, Pablo Lerma, Daniel Jack Lyons, Ivan P. Matthieu, Anne Morgenstern, Zion Perrin, Ronald Pizzoferrato, Virginie Rebetez, Ann Shelton, Samuel Spreyz and Sabine Wunderlin

THEMES AND DISCIPLINES

The visits address some of the central issues of the exhibition in an accessible and age-appropriate way. The number and complexity of the themes vary according to the age of the pupils. In all cases, the visit is based on the photographs and videos made by the artists.

Questions addressed during the visit include, depending on the age of the pupils:

• Loss and remembrance: how to express absence through images? What role does photography play in the relationship with missing loved ones? How can we tell a difficult story to people who didn’t experience it?
• Bonds and relationships: what connects us to our loved ones and to others? What makes us feel safe and supported? What stays with us after someone has left us? How do our origins shape us?
• Visible and invisible: how do we talk about something we cannot see? How can we express emotions through a static image? What do we share with others, and what do we choose to keep to ourselves?
• Collective and resistance: what is the collective? Why are some people excluded? How can we be stronger together? Why do some people not have access to the same rights as others?
• Plants, ecology and care: can a forest become a secret garden? What is our relationship with plants and living beings? What has been the role and knowledge of women in plant-based care? How can we take care of ourselves and of others?

Depending on the age of the pupils, the subjects and themes covered during the visit include:

• Care, memory, remembrance, grief, emotions
• Family & interpersonal dynamics
• Social and environmental sciences
• Photography, video and art

Venue: Le Commun, 10 Rue des Vieux-Grenadiers, 1205 Geneva (bâtiment J)

Dates: 27 August 2024 to 15 September 2024

Hours: Visits with the facilitator by reservation only from Monday to Friday between 9:00 and 18:00 (school groups can be welcomed outside the Commun opening hours). Tours without a facilitator are also possible. Reservations are necessary outside the museum’s public opening hours (Monday to Sunday 11:00 -18:00).

Age: all school degrees from 14 years old (7P)

Duration of the visit: 45 minutes

Languages: French or English

Price: free for classes

Reservation: via the online form

Further information: by email at visites@centrephotogeneve.ch or by phone at 022 329 28 35

Preparatory visit: Admission is free for teachers wishing to prepare a visit with their class. The preparatory visit is possible during the public opening hours of the Commun, from Monday to Sunday from 11:00 to 18:00

FURTHER INFORMATION

The detailed description of the exhibition and the mediation offer is available (in French) in this PDF file.

From 4 September to 15 December 2024:
Exhibition Palonegro by Luis Carlos Tovar

The Centre de la photographie Genève presents the exhibition Palonegro by Colombian artist Luis Carlos Tovar. The project, developed over several years of research between Colombia and Switzerland, is Tovar’s most recent work. It investigates a specific chapter in the history of violence in Colombia: the Thousand Days War (1899-1902), its ninth civil war, and more specifically the brutal Battle of Palonegro (May 11-25, 1900), which took place near the city of Bucamaranga in the northeastern department of Santander.

For this project, the artist researched and exhumed little-known, understudied archives from numerous private and public Swiss and Colombian sources, including those of the Red Cross, the Bibliothèque de Genève as well as declassified military files from the Colombian Ministry of War. Through his work, Luis Carlos Tovar attempts to redefine these photographic archives as “bodies to be healed”. Through an approach of symbolic repair, he intends to propose a way of healing the individual and collective memory of the traumas and wounds of Colombian history.

THEMES AND DISCIPLINES

The visits address some of the central issues of the exhibition in an accessible and age-appropriate way. The number and complexity of the themes vary according to the age of the pupils. It does not directly include images of violence or images likely to be shocking to young audiences. In all cases, the visit is based on the photographs and videos made by the artist.

Questions addressed during the visit include, depending on the age of the pupils:

• The Battle of Palonegro: why did the battle happen? What was the context of the Thousand Days War between the Colombian Liberal Party and the Colombian Conservative Party?
• How can archive images be used to tell historical events? How does the artist use them to create a body of work? How did he gain access to these archives?
• Image reappropriation: which techniques and visual strategies does the artist use to (re) tell the historical and traumatic story, and why?
• History of violence in Colombia: how does the artist address difficult topics such as war and violence? In which way does he convey these events to the visitors to the show?
• Yesterday and today: how do we cope in the present with the past? Are there ways to heal the wounds of history? In what ways do the contemporary images created by the artist coexist with the archival material? The meaning of memory, and how is it passed down through the ages.

Depending on the age of the pupils, the subjects and themes covered during the visit include:

• History in Colombia at the beginning of the 20th century, geopolitics
• Memory, war narratives, care
• Archives and archival images
• Photography, art

Venue: Centre de la photographie Genève, 28 Rue des Bains, 1205 Geneva

Dates: 4 September 2024 to 15 December 2024

Hours: Visits with the facilitator by reservation only from Monday to Friday between 9:00 and 18:00 (school groups can be welcomed outside the Centre de la photographie Genève opening hours). Tours without a facilitator are also possible. Reservations are necessary outside the museum’s public opening hours (Monday to Sunday 11:00 -18:00).

Age: all school degrees from 10 years old (5P)

Duration of the visit: 45 minutes

Languages: French or English

Price: free for classes

Reservation: via the online form

Further information: by email at visites@centrephotogeneve.ch or by phone at 022 329 28 35

Preparatory visit: Admission is free for teachers wishing to prepare a visit with their class. The preparatory visit is possible during the public opening hours of the Centre de la photographie Genève, from Monday to Sunday from 11:00 to 18:00

FURTHER INFORMATION

The detailed description of the exhibition and the mediation offer is available (in French) in this PDF file.