Schools

From 31 October 2025 to 31 January 2026:
Collective exhibition Mobilité. Enquêtes photographiques genevoises

Bibliothèque de Genève (BGE)

This exhibition showcases three recent photographic investigations from an artistic and historical collection created by the City of Geneva and preserved at the Iconography Centre of the Geneva Library. Since 2016, a photographer established in Canton Geneva has been commissioned each year to produce a documentary project of the region based on a specific theme selected for a three-year period. This project supports local documentary photography while also providing a testimony to Geneva’s patrimony.

Resulting from close collaboration between the Iconography Centre of the Geneva Library and the Centre de la photographie Genève, this exhibition presents the investigations produced by three Geneva artists, Zoé Aubry, Gabriela Löffel and Laurence Rasti, between 2019 and 2021, on the topic of Mobility.

Laurence Rasti focuses on discriminated or even criminalised mobility. In her series Délits de séjours, the photographer examines the daily lives of people often reduced to their administrative status as “undocumented migrants”. The portraits show partially hidden, blurred or rear-view faces, highlighting people’s social invisibility despite their contribution to society. Through this work, she invites us to reflect on mechanisms of discrimination, on the marginalisation of certain groups, but also on the spaces where solidarity and institutional controls are organised.

Gabriela Löffel investigates a little-known reality in Sans titres: asylum-related deportation policies. Her research begins at the construction site of the Federal Asylum and Deportation Centre in Grand-Saconnex, near the airport, and continues to the headquarters of financial companies in Zurich and London that are the owners of the company commissioned to manage the asylum centre. Her photographs include texts from organisations involved in asylum or finance. She highlights the links between the economy, migration policy and refugee reception conditions.

In her series Effet miroir, Zoé Aubry explores a phenomenon that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic: the connection between video conferencing and cosmetic surgery. As video calls became part of everyday life, many people began to perceive themselves differently, as cameras tend to distort the face – enlarging the nose and accentuating facial features. The image of oneself is no longer shaped solely by the gaze of others, but also by a distorted image on the screen. To highlight this shift, the photographer superimposes photographs taken before and after cosmetic surgery. Her images – close-ups of chins, eyes, or lips – reflect on how technology shapes our perception of our bodies.

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:

• Photographic survey: what is a photographic survey and what are its implications? How do photographers take on a given theme to develop a specific project? What is documentary photography?
• Migration policy: what is discriminated mobility? In what way do institutions and associations play a role in the lives of irregular residents? What are the consequences of forced returns for those affected? What are the economic and human dimensions of these actions?
• Making the invisible visible: how can photography be used to reveal hidden realities? What are the strategies being used by photographers? How can photography become a tool for reflection and for raising awareness?
• Self-image: how do screens change our relationship with our own body image? What are the links between technology, self-image and society?
• Photography in all its forms: how do photographers use photography in relation to other media such as text, sculpture or maps to create new meaning?

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

• Immigration policy, asylum
• Geopolitics, economics
• Beauty standards and technology
• Photography, visual arts

Venue

Centre de la photographie de Genève
Bibliothèque de Genève
Promenade des Bastions 8
1205 Genève

Dates

31 October 2025 to 31 January 2026
School visits from 31 October 2025

Hours

Hours: Visits with the facilitator by reservation only from Monday to Friday between 9:00 and 18:00.
Tours without a facilitator are also possible, preferably by prior arrangement, when the museum is open to the public (Tuesday to Friday, 11h-18h, Saturday, 11h-17h)

Age
all school degrees from 8 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
The preparatory visit is possible during the public opening of the museum.

FURTHER INFORMATION

From 30 September 2025 to 9 January 2026:
Exhibition Ici, là
by Massao Mascaro

Maison de l’enfance et de l’adolescence (HUG)

The Centre de la Photographie Genève presents the exhibition Ici, là [Here, There] by French artist Massao Mascaro at the Maison de l’enfance et de l’adolescence (HUG), in collaboration with the Fondation Convergences.

Mascaro’s work combines poetry, politics and territory. Working in black and white analogue photography, he composes soft and delicate images, marked by contemplation and sensitivity. His projects are rooted as much in travel and walks as in the observation of daily life.

Since becoming a father, careful observation of everyday life, with its repetitive nature – gestures, itineraries, daily routines – has become central in his artistic practice. This exhibition reflects this by presenting two previously unseen photographic series, created between Geneva and Brussels over several years.

The first series, Rhône, explores the banks of the river in Geneva. The artist captures the reflections and opacity of the water from a recurring viewpoint on the riverbank, looking through the vegetation and playing with the subtle variations in light, water level and vegetation. Devoid of any human presence, these images stand somewhere between contemplation and allegory, the flow of water becoming a metaphor of the passing of time.

The second series, La Table, shifts the focus towards the domestic interior. Photographed in the artist’s family apartment in Brussels, the kitchen table appears after the meals, marked by the traces of everyday life. A recurrent theme in art history, in his work it becomes a place of memory, accumulation and repetition. Unstaged, the artist captures the banality of ordinary gestures, revealing their fragile beauty.

By contrasting the river’s flow with the table’s stillness, the exterior with the interior, Geneva with Brussels, the artist gives us a glimpse into his life, while emphasising the value of the everyday and the mundane, inviting us to admire what usually escapes our attention.

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 made by the artist.

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

• Observing the everyday: how to make the mundane and ordinary gestures interesting? Can everyday life be viewed as a piece of art? How can photography change how we see things we consider ordinary?
• Time passing: how can a still image convey the notion of time going by? How does the artist manage to translate this visually? How can an action be narrated without displaying any characters in the images?
• Artistic process: what is black and white analogue photography? How does it work? Why does the artist use a repetitive pattern in his photographic series? How does an artist talk about his or her personal story?

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

• Contemplation, sensible perception
• Daily life, personal narrative
• Art history, still life, landscape
• Analogue photography

Venue

Maison de l’enfance et de l’adolescence des HUG
Boulevard de la Cluse 26
1205 Genève

Dates

30th September 2025 to 9th January 2026

Hours

Visits with the facilitator by reservation only from Monday to Friday between 9:00 and 18:00.

Tours without a facilitator are also possible, preferably by prior arrangement, when the Maison de l’enfance et de l’adolescence is open to the public (Monday to Friday, 9h-20h).

Age

all school degrees from 8 years old (5P)

Duration of the visit

25 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

The preparatory visit is possible during the public opening of the museum.

FURTHER INFORMATION