The Centre de la photographie Genève is launching in 2023 a new mentoring programme for artists and photographers in 2023, aiming to support them in the development of a project. This format is based on a 1:1 mentorship where an artist supports another artist in the development and realisation of an ongoing project. The mentorship takes the form of four meetings, either in person or online, over a period of six months, from May to October 2023.
The programme is open to any professional artist or photographer (including self-taught) who is not, during the period of the mentorship, enrolled in another mentorship programme or academic course (including art or photography school) and who speaks one of the following languages: French, English, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Arabic, German, Farsi.
Each of the eight mentors will choose a project they wish to support from the pool of applications, based on the artist’s expectations and the support they feel they can provide to the artist. Those selected for mentoring will receive a sum of CHF 500 at the end of the programme to support the development of their project.
Format and duration of the mentoring
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 and October 2023, with no extension possible, in order to facilitate the progress of the mentee’s project.
Depending on the location of the artists and mentors, meetings may take place in person or online. If one or more meetings take place in person and the artist or mentor travels more than 15 km, a travel allowance of up to CHF 150 may be granted (reimbursement upon presentation of receipts).
A final moment of exchange is planned with all participants who wish to do so, in order to present the projects and to discuss them. Depending on the location of the participants, this moment will take place online or in person, or in a hybrid format, yet to be determined.
The mentors 2023
Olga Cafiero is a Swiss-Italian photographer, born in Como in 1982. After growing up in Geneva, she obtained a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in photography at ECAL (École cantonale d’art de Lausanne). Her work has been regularly exhibited since 2009 in Switzerland and abroad and published in international magazines. Her awards include Foam Talent (shortlisted), Hyères Festival de Mode et de Photographie (finalist), BFF-Forderpreis (laureate), the Swiss Design Award (laureate in 2011 and shortlisted in 2022), and the Neuchâtel Photographic Survey (laureate in 2019).
Her work is distinguished by a precise approach to photography, in which it is both a tool for the construction of knowledge about the world and a narrative device, as well as a vector of sensations and emotions. For the past ten years, her practice has articulated art, history and different branches of scientific research. Investigation is central to her work, and is as much a matter of rigorous and interdisciplinary research into a subject as it is an integral part of her creative process.
Languages: French, Italian, English
https://olgacafiero.com/
Anne Golaz (1983) studied at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki where she obtained her master’s degree in 2013. Previously she joined the Master program at SVA in New York City for 6 months. In Switzerland, she studied at the Vevey School of Photography between 2004 and 2008. Her artistic work develops through a narrative approach combining photography, drawing, video and literature. Anne Golaz has exhibited in Switzerland and abroad on numerous occasions since 2008. In 2010 she won the competition of the canton of Fribourg and produced a personal work on hunting practices entitled Chasses. In Finland, she made Metsästä (From the Woods) which won the light mention at the Vevey Image Festival in 2012. Metsästä was published by Kehrer and shortlisted in the Aperture Paris Photo Book Award. Her book Corbeau (MACK, 2017) was also selected by Aperture Paris Photo Book Award in the best books of 2017, at the Rencontres d’Arles book award with an exhibition during the Prix Découverte in 2018 and exhibited at the Kunst Haus in Vienna and further. Anne Golaz participated in the last Enquête Photographique Valaisanne with a project entitled Be on the move. She is currently working on an upcoming publication with MACK and is represented by the Gallery C Neuchâtel/Paris.
Languages: French, English
http://www.annegolaz.ch
Sabine Hess (b. 1994), is a Swiss / German photographer, based between London and Thun, Switzerland. Sabine graduated from London College of Communication in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography in 2022. Her photographic practice centres around intimate narratives and notions of home, belonging, loss, and memory. Often guided by personal experience, Hess is interested in the relationship between text and imagery as complementary and contradictory tools in the story’s narrative.
Alongside her documentary projects, she has experience in editorial and portraiture photography. Clients include FT Weekend Magazine, PORT Magazine, M le Magazine du Monde, and Jigsaw. Her first book You Felt the Roots Grow was shortlisted for the Star Photobook Dummy Award and will be published by Ciao Press and Witty Books in May of 2023. Sabine was the recipient of the SPM Alumni Scholarship Fund, a finalist for the vfg Young Talent Award and nominated for the C/O Berlin Talent and the Leica Oscar Barnack Newcomer Award. Exhibitions include the Copeland Gallery in London and the IPFO in Olten.
Sabine’s work is held by the UAL Art Collection. Next to her photographic practice, she works as a Photography Specialist Technician at London College of Communication, University of Arts London. This position has developed her interest in education, allowing her to work closely with students through workshops. Before moving to London, she studied Business Administration and Art History at the University of Bern, Switzerland. This encouraged her growing interest in image research and analysis.
Languages: German, English
https://www.sabine-hess.com/
Pablo Lerma is a Spanish research-based artist, educator and publisher based in Amsterdam (The Netherlands). His artistic practice is developed at the intersection of image and text with a focus in visual archives and vernacular materials dealing with notions of collective memory, representation and queerness. His work takes various forms from photographic installations to publications.
His educational track relates to social practices, archival practices and gender studies, developing and teaching classes at Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. He runs the publishing project Meteoro Editions dedicated to the publishing and exposure of vernacular photography, archives and archival practices through publication formats.
Languages: Spanish, English, Catalan
https://pablolerma.com/
M’hammed Kilito (b. 1981, Lviv) is a Casablanca-based documentary photographer and National Geographic Explorer. His practice investigates the relationship between groups or individuals and the environment in which they live. He is interested in capturing narratives that facilitate an understanding of this relationship, covering issues related to cultural identity, the sociology of work, and climate change.
Kilito graduated with a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Montreal and an M.A. in Political Science from Ottawa University.
Currently, he is participating in the two-year VII Mentor Program, and has received numerous awards and grants as the World Press Photo Award, the Contemporary Artist Prize by François Schneider Foundation, the National Geographic Society Explorer Grant and Emergency Fund for Journalists, the CAP Prize, Sheikh Saoud Al Thani Project Award, the National Photographic Commission ‘Regards du Grand Paris,’ the first prize of Encontros da Imagem, the Visura Grant for Freelance Visual Journalists, and the Grand Prize of Kranj Photo Festival, while also being shortlisted for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award.
Kilito’s work has been showcased in various festivals and exhibitions, including Sharjah Art Foundation, 1:54 Art Fair, Tate Modern, National Museum of Photography in Rabat, Format Festival, Bosnia and Herzegovina National Museum, Photo Vogue Festival, Leica Ernst Leitz Museum, Helsinki Photo Festival, Misk Art Institute and Format Festival. Additionally, his photographs have been published in magazines and newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The British Journal of Photography, Vogue Italia, L’Express, Liberation, and El Pais.
Together with three other Moroccan visual artists, Kilito cofounded KOZ, a collective dedicated to telling compelling stories through long-term projects.
Languages: Arabic, French, Spanish and English.
https://www.kilito.com/
Born in 1973, the Swiss photographer Yann Mingard first trained as a horticulturalist and landscaper. Self-taught in photography, he has devoted himself entirely to photography since 2000, infusing his works with this specific sensitivity, intimately linked to the earth and the natural environment.
He is currently completing a trilogy on the issue of the Anthropocene with three monographs, DEPOSIT, EVERYTHING IS UP IN THE AIR, THUS OUR VERTIGO and INDOCILES.
Mingard’s work has been published to date in seven monographs and these projects have also been widely exhibited in solo, group and thematic exhibitions, both nationally and internationally. His work is also included in institutional and private collections, and he has received several distinctions for his work in the form of awards, residencies and artist commissions.
Languages spoken: French, English
www.yannmingard.ch
Laurence Rasti’s photographs seek to explore concepts of identity in a multifaceted way. Relying on the dual quality of her cultural background, she looks at cultural codes and conventions from a new angle in order to understand the influence of gender roles in society, but also the consequences of migration or the non-respect of fundamental rights.
In 2017 she published the book There Are No Homosexuals in Iran with Edition Patrick Frey and was shortlisted at the Paris Photo Aperture First Photobook Award, the Author Book Award of the Rencontres d’Arles and nominated as one of the 10 best photobooks of 2017 by the New York Times Magazine.
Her work has been exhibited in various groups and solo exhibitions around the world, including ReGeneration3 at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, Disruptive Perspectives at the Museum of Contemporary in Chicago and Photoforum Pasquart, Iran Contemporary at Fotohof Art Gallery in Austria, and different festivals like PhotoKatmandu, Vis-à-Vis Fotodocks or Tokyo International Photography Festival.
Since 2020, she has been teaching artistic practices related to photography in the bachelor programme of EDHEA – École de design et haute école d’art du Valais.
Languages: French, English, Farsi (spoken)
http://laurencerasti.ch/
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.
Langues parlées : arabe, anglais, français
https://www.abdoshanan.com/