Based a proposal by Rosa Brux, the Centre de la photographie Genève is delighted to present an exhibition by the collective Interfoto tracing its five decades of activity and marking the donation of its archive to the Bibliothèque de Genève.
For fifty years, Interfoto has been a privileged witness to daily life and social struggles in Geneva. Adopting an approach that is equally activist and commemorative, the best-known part of the collective’s photographic work has consistently brought to light the many forms and manifestations of civic protest, from the most anonymous to the most collective. From its very inception, the collective was involved with various activist groups in Geneva; their photographic work contributed in particular to documenting and publicising daily life and the struggles in the ‘Grottes’ neighbourhood, whose residents themselves embraced alternative lifestyles. Seeking more broadly to address the lack of representation of social movements and everyday life in the mainstream media, their photographic work, during its most prolific period, simultaneously supplied material to no fewer than thirty counter-information publications in Switzerland. Witnessing the neoliberal shift of the 1990s, at a time when many groups of photographers that had emerged in the wake of 1968 were disappearing, Interfoto, by contrast, has striven to produce—right up to the present day—one of the most distinctive bodies of photographic work, both in terms of its critical engagement with the world and its constant support for alternative ways of life.
The exhibition, which follows on from an initial presentation at the Centre de la photographie Genève in 2015, will showcase a body of photographs selected by the collective from its archive and which have never before been exhibited. This archive will also be brought to life in public spaces and through a series of educational workshops led by Rosa Brux.
