The Centre de la photographie Genève is delighted to host the third edition of the biennale PIPAS. This photography event, designed for and with pupils, invites around forty classes from the canton of Geneva to discover and experience the skills involved in organising a bienniale: conceptualising projects, producing photographs and texts, and even setting up exhibitions and an outreach programme. The Centre de la photographie Genève is delighted to contribute to this educational project, sharing its knowledge and expertise and offering significant public visibility by exhibiting the resulting photographic projects in its exhibition space.

The project is divided into two phases. From September to May, pupils are presented with images and asked to interpret and decode them, but also, and above all, to create their own. To do this, they work with professional photographers from Geneva and/or their teachers. In May, the bienniale is presented publicly with an exhibition at the Geneva Photography Centre and outdoors in the Jonction ecoquartier and Plaine de Plainpalais, as well as a programme of events and cultural outreach.

The theme for the 2026 edition is Trouble. A theme with multiple resonances. At the crossroads of uncertainty, movement and transformation, trouble invites us to question our perceptions, embrace the unexpected and interrogate the boundaries between
the real and the imaginary. Trouble is more than just a lack of clarity. To navigate troubled waters, you have to trust your instincts and accept that you don’t know your destination in advance. Whether it is a state or a feeling, suffered or deliberately maintained, it unsettles and disturbs, but it can also attract, opening multiple doors and other possibilities. When confusion becomes the framework for artistic exploration, it reveals the richness of uncertainty. Whether through visual games, metamorphosing materials, the evocation of ambiguous emotions or disrupted realities, the works on display offer a sensitive and daring look at our relationship with the world.

With the aim of supporting learning in the broadest possible way, pupils from various vocational training programmes are invited to participate in all aspects of the bienniale: creation of the visual identity by students from the CFP Arts, production of exhibition materials by students from the CFP Construction, communication on Instagram by students from the Digilab team at Espace Entreprise, and welcoming the public by students from Espace Entreprise.

The programme of events, cultural mediation and further information on the educational project can be found on the website of PIPAS.