Édito de Stefano Stoll

We are family!

“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.”

— Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)

Praised in 2024 as “one of the very first visual arts festivals in the world” by the correspondent of the French newspaper Le Monde, the Biennale Images Vevey has, since its founding in 2008, sought to surprise, innovate and explore the image as a universal language. This orientation coincides with the arrival of Instagram, which from 2010 became a global means of communication based on photography and video; yet it is since its birth, precisely 200 years ago, that photography has been a language in its own right.

In 2026, it is together with all those who made this rise and success possible that the Biennale Images Vevey celebrates its 10th edition, deliberately drawing inspiration from the Sister Sledge song for its festive, unifying theme: “We are family!”. As it happens, this intergenerational hit was inducted into the prestigious Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008 — the very year the Images Vevey Biennial was founded.

In 1970, the pilot and writer Richard Bach published his celebrated Jonathan Livingston Seagull, in which he wrote: “The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.” By following a seagull who rejects the conventions imposed by his flock and seeks to chart his own path, the author offers an expanded vision of family, grounded in affinity, kindness and sharing.

As contemporary societies are shaken by political, social and identity-based tensions, family models are diversifying and forms of belonging are multiplying. While the family remains one of the primary spaces for self-construction, transmission and solidarity, it is not limited to biological kinship. Nuclear, blended, single-parent or chosen families, colleagues, communities, diasporas, mutual aid networks or political circles: so many bonds that unite individuals and shape the contours of multiple families.

These bonds constitute so many spaces in which questions of memory, identity, authority and living together are negotiated. At once a refuge and a site of tension, a space for learning as much as for conflict, the family brings together as much as it divides. It is built through memories, legacies, absences, things left unsaid, reconciliations and rituals that shape both individual and collective trajectories.

For its 10th edition, the Biennale Images Vevey explores the notion of family in a broad, living, contemporary and at times deliberately unexpected sense. It also highlights the richness of the relationships woven around Images Vevey over the years. Like a large family, Images Vevey has worked with more than 503 artists from 55 countries, alongside teams, partners, institutions, political and administrative bodies, media outlets and publishing houses and, of course, a loyal and curious public — all of whom, together, have written its history, and without whom none of it would mean anything.

Featured in the programme in 2010 and 2012, the French artist JR is a representative of this large family that is Images Vevey, and one of the figures who helped the Biennale Images Vevey gain recognition from its earliest years. On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of his famous Inside Out Project, one of whose first international stages took place in Vevey, he returns in 2026 to pay grand tribute to the Biennial’s residents, visitors and friends.

This anniversary edition lends itself to the game of reunion, once again inviting artists previously featured in the programme, while also welcoming projects that address family in its most implicit aspects; for example, the self-absorbed city dwellers and their daily lives in Mark Wallinger’s work, which resonate universally within each of us; or football, a sport that ignites passions, uniting or dividing families as much as nations — a transgenerational phenomenon explored by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno through the legendary figure of Zinédine Zidane.

Within the family nucleus, relationships between parents and children can be complex. A daughter of few words, much to her mother’s dismay, Kata Geibl delves back into her memories and personal archives, seeing in artificial intelligence a new tool to finally communicate with her mother. While Abdulhamid Kircher finds in the paradoxes of Turkish oil wrestling — caught between vulnerability and virility — a way to confront the fraught emotional bonds with his father and with all the men of his paternal family, Lóa Fenzy makes a short film in which actors are cast to embody the father she never met.

Many families are built across distance, migration and the intersection of cultures. Of Democratic Republic of Congo origin and born in Switzerland, Claudia Ndebele examines family relationships through the lens of memory and diaspora, recalling a reality shared by many families divided across several countries or continents. In Morocco, Marie-Pierre Cravedi rediscovers the mechanical workshop of her paternal grandfather, an Italian emigrant who lived for sixty years in Casablanca, and follows in the footsteps of her father, who grew up there, between family memory and shared history.

Certain family lines perpetuate inheritances and privileges across successive generations, shaping the fate of entire populations. In the portrait galleries of major European museums, Cristina De Middel explores the practice of endogamy within these ruling dynasties and its effects of inbreeding; Stacy Kranitz critiques political manipulation through imagery, using the example of Appalachia in the United States, where photographic representations have helped construct a reductive view of the region, associated with poverty and exclusion.

Family histories are marked by tragedy, illness and loss. At just 3 years old, Francesco Pennacchio lost his mother to illness, and as an adult he seeks to preserve her memory. Erik Kessels was 11 when his younger sister died in a road accident: he pays tribute to her through a single portrait. Lisa Bertoldi reflects on her personal relationship with her grandparents, who died of Alzheimer’s disease.

Several artists are interested in the passage of time, tracing the evolution of their family or circle over the years and through life events. For twenty-seven years, Deanna Dikeman photographed her parents in front of the family home after each of her visits, until their passing. Presented unchanged since 2022, this installation is intended to create a moving sense of “déjà vu” as part of the visitor experience. In the form of a family tree, Barbara Davatz produced a series of portraits of couples — lovers, relatives or friends — who returned to her Zurich studio in 1982, 1988, 1997 and then 2014, revealing the evolution of emotional relationships and the vagaries of life. Rineke Dijkstra photographed Almerisa over thirty years, documenting her passage from childhood to adulthood. Lastly, Annelies Štrba revisits snapshots of her family life and travels taken between 1970 and 1997, highlighting the traces of time and of both individual and collective memory.

Archives, whether personal or family-related, constitute a rich source of artistic inspiration as well as a space for introspection through which to understand the past and question the future. Using AI, Carlos Amorales transforms hundreds of his slides from the 1990s into an autobiographical film addressing his identity as both artist and father. Having stumbled upon a photograph of his siblings taken thirty years ago at the heart of the Rhône Glacier in his family album, Thierry Raboud embarks on an investigation weaving together climate concerns, Swiss tourism and collective memory.

Some artists set out to subvert the very genre of family photography, present since the earliest days of the photographic medium, which celebrates its bicentenary this year. Drawing on countless anonymous archives unearthed at various flea markets, Vik Muniz evokes the typical images found in every family photo album through an entirely analogue collage process. Conversely, Charlie Engman repeatedly trains an AI to generate strange, fictional and unsettling domestic and family scenes. As for Hans Eijkelboom, he performatively plays the role of the absent father and husband in images that reproduce the traditional photographic codes of the nuclear family.

A place of comfort and security as much as of secrets or crises, the home is the setting for scenes that are joyful, chaotic and formative all at once. Richard Billingham documents the daily life of his family, marked by the jovial character of his father, who was nonetheless an alcoholic, and his life spent between two flats in the same block of buildings. Karolina Wojtas re-enacts, with her younger brother, situations inspired by the games and tensions that ran through their childhood. Elsa & Johanna stage, around various rented houses in Germany, a range of fictional characters and family archetypes. Lastly, during his son’s weaning nights, Mario Wezel uses technology linked to military surveillance to reveal the most intimate and private of spaces: the parents’ bedroom.

Ideally, the home offers a space sheltered from imposed social conventions, discrimination and assigned roles, where identity and a sense of belonging can be freely built. Sunil Gupta and Charan Singh, like Siân Davey, embody the notion of a “safe place”: on the one hand, the two artists create portraits of queer couples within their domestic environment; on the other, the British photographer, together with her son, transforms their garden into a wild space of letting go for her family, friends and passers-by. As for Pacifico Silano, he recreates the sex shop run by his parents, in which he grew up, worked and forged his personal and artistic identity.

Beyond genealogical and biological relationships, different communities constitute spaces of belonging in which bonds are woven along family lines. By documenting social demonstrations in 1980s and 1990s England, Sunil Gupta reveals how the LGBTQIA+ community forms itself into a chosen family, forged through collective mobilisation and shared values. Luisa Dörr portrays a collective of skateboarders active in Bolivia who reclaim the traditional pollera skirt to assert their roots and affirm their place within a conservative society.

Whether sisters, partners or acquaintances, women forge strong bonds with one another to support each other, share their experiences and defend their rights in the face of inequality. Martina Bacigalupo pays touching tribute to her former nanny who, after a lifetime devoted to others, finally fulfils her dreams upon retirement. Ruth Erdt and Eva Vuillemin delve into their mother–daughter relationship by pairing a series of their respective self-portraits taken twenty years apart, dedicating their work to their foremothers. Alice Mann celebrates the strength of sisterhood by turning her lens on the drummies of South Africa, all-female drum majorette teams who have made their activity a symbol of collective identity.

Families are also defined by their relationship to culture, sport and shared interests. In his video installation, Ange Leccia revisits the cult film Saturday Night Fever, which had several generations dancing to the sound of disco. Matthias Brunner, meanwhile, shares his two great passions in an installation that creates links between cinema and literature. Rineke Dijkstra, for her part, films a young ballerina in a dance studio, rehearsing for her audition under the strict authority of her teacher. While the singer Erika Stucky pays tribute to both her biological family and the musical family that has accompanied her 44-year career, Anoush Abrar presents his portraits of stars taken backstage at the Montreux Jazz Festival, an event that has brought together and intertwined generations for sixty years.

In the age of mass media and social networks, celebrities occupy a singular place in our lives and interactions. In the collages of Mazaccio & Drowilal, the routines of stars, photographed by paparazzi, come to resemble those of any ordinary family. Cedric Zellweger questions the way ambiguous figures such as Elon Musk and other political-economic leaders occupy public opinion through their actions and the news surrounding them, fuelling complex debates within households. Between self-staging, digital success and agricultural reality, Nadine Fraczkowski documents the daily life of an American family who suddenly became famous through viral videos of the siblings at small-livestock shows.

Animals hold a special place in certain households throughout a lifetime. Mazaccio & Drowilal present around ten dogs facing sunsets, humorously evoking the special relationship between humans and their pets. In a Berlin park, Stefanie Seufert portrays the great tits that take part, day after day, in the life of city dwellers.

At the heart of the home, everyday objects reveal much about the families who live there. On the one hand, Tokuko Ushioda highlights the essential role and intimate dimension of an object as ordinary as the refrigerator. On the other, Lucia Koch reveals the architectural and poetic potential of simple domestic packaging such as empty cardboard boxes which, once placed on the façade of Vevey’s former prison, become symbols of freedom and hope.

Lastly, this 10th edition celebrates Vevey, this city of images, and its residents, who make the Biennale Images Vevey a gathering, accessible to all, in which the image becomes, edition after edition, a shared space, a common language and a set of unifying experiences.

“Welcome Back” to those who are returning, “Happy Birthday” to this whole family built up over ten editions, and, as the four Sledge sisters sing: “Get up everybody and sing!”

Stefano Stoll
Images Vevey
Founder and Director