FESTIVAL IMAGES VEVEY
05-27.09.2020
La Becque was pleased to partner up with the Festival Images Vevey and hosted installations by Aladin Borioli, a 2019 recipient of the EXECAL Residencies at La Becque and a 2020 “satellite resident”, and by Yann Gross, who spent the summer at the residency to continue his research on plant-based photographic development. Another La Becque alumnus, Duy Hoàng was also part of the program with his Vestigial Structure project shown at the Quai Roussy.
Aladin Borioli (CH) – RUCHES & AN INTIMACY MACHINE
Aladin Borioli’s interest in beehives was passed on to him by his grandfather, a beekeeper. After training in visual arts at ECAL/Ecole cantonale d’art in Lausanne, and in anthropology at the Freie Universität Berlin, since 2014 Aladin has been building up a vast corpus of bee-related photographs, videos, sounds and ethnographic material. He is publishing a book to coincide with Festival Images Vevey, compiling hundreds of archives to present a new history of beehives. This fascinating visual glossary traces the diverse contraptions humans invented for bees between 2400 BCE and 1852, the year the “modern” beehive was patented. Ruches portrays the millennia-old relationship between humans and bees, reminding us of the vital role these insects play in our shared ecosystem. In parallel, Aladin will present a second exhibition at La Becque – this one extracted from his ongoing research project An Intimacy Machine, of which the residency is one of several supporters and anchors.
Ruches was awarded the Nestlé Grand Prix Images Vevey 2019/2020.
YANN GROSS (CH) & ARGUIÑE ESCANDON (ES) – AYA
Yann Gross and Arguiñe Escandón created their Aya project (which means ‘spirit’ in Quechua) based on the work of Charles Kroehle, a 19th-century French-German pioneer in ethnographic photography who, according to popular legend, disappeared in the Peruvian Amazon. The Aya series uses both historical and contemporary images, and was created in the heart of the rainforest, to propose a dialogue between the representation of exoticism and the artists’ sensory impressions from time spent with various indigenous communities. To infuse their photographs with the essence of the jungle, Yann Gross and Arguiñe Escandón printed some of them on the spot, benefitting from the photosensitive properties of exotic plants. As such, the Aya project constitutes the onset of an in-depth research continued by Yann Gross at La Becque, centered on the use of plants in the photographic process.
The exhibition layout and design for the version of Aya shown at La Becque was conceived with RGB Architectes and Emanuel Ris woodworking, Lausanne. With the generous support of the City of Lausanne, Wilde Gallery, G.A.O Constructions Bois and the Casino Barrière Foundation.
Photo credit: Aya, Yann Gross & Arguiñe Escandon