Dear Spectrum members,
We are very happy to invite you to our upcoming lunch with Estelle Sohier on 22 October (postponed from June), as well as to this year's edition of What's Next and the General Assembly, on 3 December in Geneva.
We are also very glad to share with you the first Spectrum essay of the year: Contaminations. by Claus Gunti, and its extremely stimulating reflections on contemporary images.
For the Spectrum board,
Danaé Panchaud
President
Spectrum Lunch with Estelle Sohier, 22 October 2021, 12:30-13:30
As already announced, the Spectrum Lunch was postponed to 22 October 2021, 12:30 to 13:30, and will be held on Zoom in French.
Estelle Sohier an associate professor at UNIGE. She holds a PhD in history from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the University of Naples Orientale. She has worked on the political use of photography during the colonial period and the history of Ethiopian royalty between the 1880s and the 1930s. She conducted research in France, Italy and Ethiopia before joining the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Geneva in January 2010.
At the crossroads of geography and cultural history, her work focuses on the uses of photography, the history of the gaze, and the notion of geographical imagination. For several years, she has been studying the work of the Geneva-based photographer and editor Fred Boissonnas, in particular his work on Swiss landscapes, Greece, Egypt and the Mediterranean, which formed the basis of the exhibition and publication Fred Boissonnas et la Méditerrannée at the Musée d’art et d’histoire de Genève in 2020.
Abstract
Exposer une archive photographique. Fred Boissonnas (1858-1946)
À l’automne 2020, le musée Rath à Genève accueillait une grande exposition autour de l’œuvre du photographe suisse Fred Boissonnas (1858-1946). Plus de deux cent oeuvres mettaient en valeur la diversité du patrimoine photographique, avec des tirages d’exposition et de travail, des livres d’art, des autochromes, des projections, mais aussi des affiches et des documents manuscrits. Cette conférence reviendra d’une part sur l’ampleur du fonds patrimonial au cœur de cette exposition, et d’autre part sur le fil conducteur qui guidait les pas des visiteurs : la quête d’un artiste pictorialiste qui tentait de repousser les limites de la photographie en jouant avec les sujets et les supports, comme le livre d’art, mais aussi en nouant des collaborations avec des scientifiques, des écrivains, et des hommes politiques, en Suisse, en Grèce, en Égypte. Ensemble, ils étendirent la valeur et les interprétations de l’image, pour aller au-delà de la surface du visible, le projet culminant à cet égard étant une vaste enquête menée sur les traces de l’Odyssée d’Homère.
Registration is mandatory until Wednesday 20 October at spectrum@photography-in-switzerland.ch.
F. Boissonnas, Abou Simbel, Nubie, 1929. Tirage aux encres grasses, contrecollé sur carton, 50 × 40 cm. © Collection privée, Suisse.
F. Boissonnas, Djerba, Aghir, 1912. Négatif au gélatino-bromure d’argent sur verre, 9 × 12 cm. © Bibliothèque de Genève. Inv. CIG FVB n09x12 1329.
F. Boissonnas, Naples, pêcheurs, 1912. Négatif au gélatino-bromure d’argent sur verre, 9 × 12 cm. © Bibliothèque de Genève. Inv. CIG FVB n09x12 0364g
Save the Date and Call for Projects: What's Next 2022! 3 December, Centre de la Photographie Genève
What's Next 2022! takes place this year on December 3 at the Centre de la Photographie in Genève. Please make a note and register until November 22! Again, 20 special and exciting projects on photography taking place next year in Switzerland will be presented. You can submit projects until the end of October to Melisa Arslan at spectrum@photography-in-switzerland.ch.
The event is public. Registration is mandatory via spectrum@photography-in-switzerland.ch.
Save the Date: Spectrum General Assembly, 3 December 2021, Centre de la Photographie Genève
For members of Spectrum, the General Assembly will take place on the morning of December 3, also at Centre de la Photographie Genève. For this too, registration at Melisa Arslan via spectrum@photography-in-switzerland.ch is required.