Mentorship

Conditions de participation

Applications are open from 10 March to 10 April 2025.

Application to the programme is free.

Applications can only be received through the online form here (link online on 10 March 2025):

Artists and photographers of any age and nationality, based in any country, can participate provided they meet the following criteria:

• Having a project in progress, i.e. already started but not yet completed.
• Not being enrolled in another mentoring programme or academic course during the mentoring period (May to October 2025).
• Speaking fluently at least one of the following languages: Arabic, English, Farsi, French, German, Italian, Vietnamese.
• Committing to being available for four meetings, in person or online, during the mentoring period (no extension possible).
• Filling in the application form clearly and in full, including sending the description of the current project, by 10 April 2025.
• Agreeing to have their name and project information shared within the context of the programme.

The applicants selected by the mentors will be contacted in April 2025. Applicants cannot give a preference for one particular mentor, and mentors agree not to select the project of a person with whom they already have a significant relation. Apart from this criterion, mentors do not have to justify their choice of project.

The project support amount (CHF 500) will be paid out at the end of the mentoring period (after the 4th meeting). There is no need to justify the use of this amount.

In case of problems, the team of the Centre de la photographie Genève can be contacted at any time by the mentors or mentees.

Format of mentorship

At the beginning of the first meeting, the mentor and mentee agree on the central aspects of the mentoring and sign a simple agreement summarising these aspects. They set together the dates of the meetings.

The mentoring is based on a series of four meetings, either online or in person, planned by agreement between the mentor and the mentee between May 2025 and October 2025, with no extension possible, in order to facilitate the progress of the mentee’s project.

Mentors 2025

MASSAO MASCARO

Born in Lille in 1990, Massao Mascaro lives between Brussels and Geneva. He graduated in photography from Le 75 in Brussels, and completed his education at the Blank Paper Escuela in Madrid. From 2019 to 2023, he taught at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.

His work combines autobiography, topography and politics, exploring the interactions between individuals and the places they live in. His black-and-white photographs are distinguished by their visual poetry, bringing together delicacy and metaphorical power. His Sub Sole (“under the sun” in Latin) series, produced in collaboration with the A Stichting Foundation, is a photographic project inspired by Ulysses’ journey around the Mediterranean, an area marked by migration and exile. This work led to the publication of the book Sub Sole in 2021 (Chose Commune).

Winner of several awards, including the Bozar Monography Series Award, he was also a finalist for the Louis Roederer Discovery Award at the Rencontres d’Arles, and has held several residencies in Europe. His work has been exhibited for several years in Belgium and internationally, in solo and group shows, including at Le Botanique in Brussels, BIP in Liège, Bozar in Brussels, FOMU in Antwerp, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Fondation A Stichting in Brussels, and Photoforum Pasquart in Biel.

Languages : French, Italian and English

Website and socials media : www.massaomascaro.com
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/massaomascaro/

LÉONIE ROSE MARION

Léonie Rose Marion’s work focuses on different topics related to territory, geology and the photographic medium. Her exploration of the physical qualities and the materiality of photography is rooted in documentary fieldwork, whether it’s the melting of glaciers in her work Surfaces reliques, produced using out-of-date Polaroids, or her latest project Relever la nuit (Surveying the night), in which she attempts to measure light pollution using photograms. This project was awarded by the City of Geneva’s photographic grant in 2022.

Her work has been exhibited in various Swiss institutions such as the Centre de la photographie Genève, Photo Elysée, the Centre d’Art Pasquart in Bienne and IPFO-Haus der Fotografie in Olten. She also works as an art educator at the Centre de la photographie Genève. She is a graduate of the Vevey School of Photography and the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD-Geneva).

Languages : French, English and Italian, some exchanges are possible in German

Website and social media :
https://www.leoniemarion.ch
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/leonierosemarion/

THI MY LIEN NGUYEN

Thi My Lien Nguyen is a Swiss-Vietnamese photographer and artist based in Switzerland. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Camera Arts from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in 2017.

In her artistic practice she deals with the feeling and understanding of belonging, participation and the sense of home, whereas she is strongly interested in diasporic and post-migrant realities and stories. Through participatory and inclusive methods, performative, storytelling and culinary activations she seeks to establish more inclusive spaces to create more understanding and representations between communities. She works with traditions, rituals, folklore, photography and food.

Her work has been exhibited in multiple exhibitions including the Athens Photo Festival (2024), 22nd Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil in São Paulo (2023), Museum Haus Konstruktiv Zürich (2023), Plat(t)form, Fotomuseum Winterthur (2022), Photo Hanoi, Vincom Center for Contemporary Art (VCCA) (2021). Nguyen is part of the curatorial team at Les Complices*, a self-organised community-based off-space in Zurich, committed to support the ideas and works of queer, trans, inter, non-binary, women* and BIPoC.

Languages : German, English, some exchanges are possible in Vietnamese (spoken)

Website and social media :
https://myliennguyen.ch
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/myliennguyen

DANAÉ PANCHAUD

Danaé Panchaud is a Swiss exhibition curator, museologist and lecturer specialising in photography. She has been the director of the Centre de la photographie Genève since 2022, after serving from 2018 to 2021 as director and curator of the Photoforum Pasquart in Biel, Switzerland. She trained in photography at the Vevey School of Photography before completing a bachelor’s degree in visual arts with a specialisation in curatorial practices at Geneva University of Art and Design. She later studied museology at Birkbeck, University of London, earning a master’s degree in 2017. She has held positions in several Swiss institutions in the fields of contemporary art, design and science, including the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, where she was a research associate from 2007 to 2012, the Gallery SAKS in Geneva in 2012-2013, the Fondation Verdan in Lausanne as scientific collaborator, and the mudac in Lausanne, where she was in charge of the public relations from 2012 to 2017. As a free-lance curator, she has curated exhibitions for several Swiss and international museums, independent spaces and galleries since 2012. She regularly writes texts for monographs of contemporary artists, exhibition catalogues, and thematic publications such as Flora Photographica, co-authored with William Ewing and published by Thames & Hudson in 2022. She was a lecturer at the Vevey School of Photography from 2014 to 2018. She regularly lectures at art and photography schools in Switzerland, and in 2023, she joined the teaching faculty of the CAS in Theory and History of Photography at University of Zurich.

Languages: French, English

Website and social media :
https://danaepanchaud.net
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/danaepanchaud/

MAHALIA TAJE GIOTTO

Graduating with a MA in photography from ECAL in 2022, Mahalia Giotto alias taje (CH, 1992) explores topics related to the body, identity and representation. His first book, existential boner (SPBH/ECAL, 2023), was exhibited at Images Vevey, in a solo show at SPBH Space in Milan, and won the Swiss Design Awards in 2024. Through a personal approach exploring the limits of photography, he questions the binarity of norms, with a new specific focus on masculinity and its many incarnations.

Languages : French and English

Website and social media :
https://mahaliataje.com/
Instagram : @taje_1311

ABDO SHANAN

Abdo Shanan was born in 1982 in Oran, Algeria to a Sudanese father and an Algerian mother. Abdo studied Telecommunications Engineering at the University of Sirte, Libya until 2006. In 2012, he undertook an internship at Magnum Photos Paris, which gave him the opportunity to reflect on his photographic approach. In 2015, Abdo received a nomination for Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund, the Same year he co-founded collective220, a collective for Algerian photographers. A year later in 2016 his series Diary:Exile was selected by the Addis Fotofest. Abdo in 2019 won The CAP Prize (Contemporary African Photography) for his project Dry, in the same year he was selected for Joop Swart Masterclass by World Press Photo. In 2020, he was a winner of The Premi Mediterrani Albert Camus Incipiens. In the same year, he co-curated Narratives from Algeria at Photoforum Pasquart in Bienne, Switzerland. In 2022, he was one of Sheikh Saoud Al Thani Awards for his project A Little Louder. He had the same year his first solo show at Centre de la photographie Genève.

Languages: Arabic, English, French

Website and social media :
https://www.abdoshanan.com/
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/abdo.shanan/

ANN GRIFFIN

Ann Griffin (*1981, Lugano, CH) works as a graphic designer specialised in editorial design. Based in Zürich Switzerland, she collaborates with publishers, photographers and artists on different projects. Her main focus is book design with a particular interest in photography books. She has been a juror, a teacher and leader of numerous workshops in different art schools as well as her own Photobook retreat in the Swiss mountains. Since 2017 she is a committee member of near. (Swiss association for contemporary photography).

Languages : Italian, German, Swiss German, French, English

Website and socials : www.anngriffin.ch
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/ann__griffin/

JERMAINE FRANCIS

Jermaine Francis is a London based lens based artist/ photographer who explores our physical, historical, psychological negotiations of space, exploring issues of Power, class, race, social, political within visual culture.

His work has been exhibited in shows at the International Centre of Photography New York, The National Portrait Gallery London,Haus Wien Austr, GaleriePcp Paris, Centre of British Photography London,The Saatchi Gallery London,Pembroke JCR Gallery Oxford,The Camden Arts Centre , Sherbert Green London , Peckham 24 Photo Festival 2024, The Impression Gallery Bradford, V&A Lates,Glass Tank Oxford Brookes University, Dulwich picture Gallery London, and at Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery.

He co-curated the group show ‘Notes on a Native Son, After Baldwin’ with Emma  Bowkett as part of the 2023 edition of Peckham 24 Photo Festival.

His work has also appeared in monographs, The Art of Protest: Political Art and Activism, ICP Concerned Global Images for Global Crisis & Photo No’s No’s. He has also  written for a 1000 words Photographic Magazine,Thames & Hudson,BoyBrother Friend and Beauty Papers..

Currently an associate Lecturer in MA Media Studies at the Royal College Art, MA Documentary Photography & Photojournalism  London College of Communications,  and BA Fashion Communications Central St Martins School of Design.

Languages : English

Website and socials :

https://www.jermainefrancis.studio
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/jermainefrancisstudio/

HANNAH DARABI

Iranian artist-photographer Hannah Darabi was born in Teheran in 1981. She studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Teheran, and then at the University of Paris VIII-Saint-Denis. Now based in Paris, her homeland remains the main subject of most of her photographic series. She creates series in which her photographs interact with other materials, such as texts, archival images and objects, to reveal the country’s complex political situation.

The artist’s book holds a prominent place among the other forms of representation she explores. Her books are part of public and private collections, and her work Rue Enghelab, la révolution par les livres, Iran 1979-1983, was published in 2019 by Spector Books and Le Bal. Soleil of Persian Square, her recent research-creation project in connection with Southern California’s Iranian diaspora and its popular music, was published by Gwinzegal Art Center in 2021. In 2022, Hannah Darabi was awarded the Bernd und Hilla Becher prize by the city of Düsseldorf for her ensemble of artistic practice.

Languages : French, English, Farsi

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/hannahdarabi/