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Booklette

14/09/2024—15/09/2024, Vevey

Images Vevey and Photo Elysée organize Booklette, a photobook fair bringing together Swiss and international publishers. The equation is simple and convivial: Books + Raclette = Booklette.

near. is taking part by offering members a guided tour of Biennale Images Vevey and the presentation of their publications at a table among the publishers.

Register to take part to the photobook fair and/or follow a guided tour of the biennial exhibitions on Saturday 14 at 11am: info@near.li

Tiziana Amico, winner near. prize 2024, at Verzasca Foto Festival

30/08/2024, Verzasca

The jury of this year’s near. prize is happy to announce the winner of the edition – Tiziana Amico! Her work will be exhibited at the Verzasca Foto Festival 2024. Come and join us in beautiful Ticino for the opening days August 30 – 31.

Jury statement:
In the project “Nunca Fui Adolescente” (’I Never Was A Teenager’), Amico explores the personal stories of Argentine women who became mothers before adulthood, challenging stigmatized representations of adolescent motherhood, highlighting their resilience and individuality through intimate portrayals created in a collaboration with these young women.

The jury was convinced both by the choice of the author’s subject and the visual decisions taken in the project. The strong visual storytelling is combined with a very personal, almost gentle, approach of Amico to the experiences of these women and the desire to give them a voice and understand their perspective. Through a conscious use of portraiture mixed with images of private writings and symbolic objects, Tiziana Amico manages to create a memorable and powerful, yet very tender visual narrative.

Images credits:
From “Nunca Fui Adolescente” (’I Never Was A Teenager’) by Tiziana Amico

Arles near. x Pool Collective

04/07/2024, Arles

We are very excited to inform you that the dates and location for our event during the opening week of the Rencontres d’Arles have been confirmed. We are collaborating with Pool collective to host an apéro and present our associations at the Librairie du Palais. Alongside this evening we are organising a DIY poster campaign throughout the city of Arles.

near. x nuit des images BYOB

22/06/2024, Lausanne

near. photographers will be bringing their beamers and are presenting an abundance of images on the Plateforme 10 esplanade.

Mainly concerned with the themes of nature, artifacts and identity, discover the work of Tiziana Amico, Graziella Antonini, Yann Amstutz, Thomas Annaheim Lambert, Zoé Aubry, Rebecca Bowring, Aline Bovard Rudaz, Delphine Burtin, Margaux Corda, Marie-Pierre Cravedi, Matthieu Croizier, Ankita Das, Tomasz Fall, Matthias Forster, Anne Gabriel-Jürgens, Yann Haeberlin, Fabian Hugo, Emilien Itim, Khashayar Javanmardi, Stephen Kelly, Yann Laubscher, Arthur Lehmann, Samuel Matzig, Cécile Monnier Laurence Rasti, Nora Rupp, Roxana Savin and Mihai Sovaiala.

near. prize 2024

29/05/2024

We are thrilled to announce the opening of the call for entries for the near. prize 2024!
The winner of the near. prize 2024 will have the opportunity to showcase their work at Verzasca Foto Festival 2024, as well as being awarded 1000 CHF and a free one-year near. membership.

This year’s jury panel comprises of the following fotography experts: Alfio Tommasini, Director and Curator of the Verzasca Foto Festival; Annette Amberg, Director of Coalmine – Raum für Fotografie (Winterthur); and the committee of near. counting as one vote.

The call for entries is open from April 22 to May 29, 2024. The winner will be revealed this June, with their exhibition featured in the 2024 edition of Verzasca Foto Festival.
There is no specific theme for this year’s prize, so please refer to the application form guidelines for comprehensive details.

We eagerly await the submission of your application!

→ Apply now (deadline: Wednesday, May 29, 2024)

(*Please note that the near. prize is exclusively reserved for members of the association.)

Guided Tour near. prize Pedro Rodrigues

18/05/2024

Special guided tour of the Bieler Fototag/ Journées photographiques de Bienne with Pedro Rodrigues, Rebecca Bowring, Julien Heimann and Sarah Girard
near. is pleased to invite you and your near friend and family to join us for a guided tour of the shows in Bienne / Biel in the very special company of the photographers Pedro Rodrigues, winner of the near Prize 2023, Rebecca Bowring, winner of the near prize 2021, Julien Heimann photographer member of near and Sarah Girard, director of the festival.
The entrance is being taken care by us!
Saturday 18th of May, 2.15pm, meeting point 10 Juraplatz Biel / Bienne

Photographer membership

Applies to active photographers who have developed a personal body of work within the field of contemporary photography whether with a documentarian or an artistic approach.
All members get free access to all near. activities and the possibility to apply for free for the ‘near. prize’, as well as various benefits from our partners.

Become a member

Membership fee: CHF 100.– per year. Applicants for a photographer membership are selected by nears.’ committee based on their portfolio. Young photographers (also selected on the basis of their portfolio) benefit from a free one-year membership, as long as they are students or graduated within a year. Note that the near. membership only extends to Swiss nationals or people that live and work in Switzerland.

Selection Criteria

The acceptance of new members into the association is done by the committee following a series of selection criteria which include, among others, the originality of the submitted project and the artist’s vision, the body of work’s aesthetic quality, the coherence between the content and the form given to it, the integration of the submitted work into the author’s broader artistic project and, finally, the relevance of the project in relation to the current challenges faced by the photographic medium.

near. Network members

Art historians, art critics, curators, associations, institutions, publishers, museums, as well as key people in the field of photography are welcome to be part of our Network. Free of charge, this Network is intended to foster connections between our photographers and the photography world. We regularly invite Network members to be part of our jury’s, crit groups or events. Get in touch to be on our website.

Application

A single PDF document, with the following content (please do not exceed 20 MB) 1) 10–20 images (ideally at least two projects, no single images) 2) a written overview statement of the project(s) in english or french 3) a CV and/or Biography 4) full contact and site * Please note that applications not corresponding to the above guidelines will be rejected. Send to: info@near.li

Procedure

Please send us all content, as listed below. The committee gets together 2 times a year to consider applications and discuss the subscriptions. Deadlines to submit your portfolio: March 1st and September 1st of each year.

Expectations

— Do one Takeover of the near. Instagram account. — Be ready to participate in the ‘near. photographic collection’ which consists of a collection of one print per artist (production is paid by near. selection is done in chronological order of acceptance).— Pay each years membership in due time. — If possible participate to the General Assembly and of course to our events.

Français

near. a été fondée à Lausanne en 2009 et son but principal est de promouvoir la photographie contemporaine. L’association organise ses activités autour de quatre objectifs principaux: diffuser le trav… read more

Deutsch

near. wurde 2009 in Lausanne gegründet, um die zeitgenössische Fotografie zu fördern. Der Verein organisiert Aktivitäten, die sich auf vier Hauptziele konzentrieren: die Förderung und Verbreitung der … read more

English

near. was founded in Lausanne in 2009 and its principal aim is to promote contemporary photography. The association organizes activities set around four main objectives: to promote and disseminate the… read more

Italiano

near. è stata fondata a Losanna nel 2009 con l'obiettivo principale di promuovere la fotografia contemporanea. L'associazione organizza attività intorno a quattro obiettivi principali: promuovere e di… read more

Committee

Anna-Tia Buss

Ann Griffin

(*1981, Lugano, CH) works as a graphic designer specialised in editorial design. Based in Zürich, she collaborates with publishers, photographers and artists on different projects. Her main focus is book design with a particular interest in photography books. She has led numerous workshops in different art schools, as well as her own Photobook retreat in the mountains. Since 2017 she is a committee member of near. (Swiss association for contemporary photography).

Victoria Mühlig

Damien Sivier

New committee:

Maeva Dubrez

Miriam Edmunds

Anna Konstantinova

(*1990, Samara, RU) is a Zurich-based curator specializing in contemporary photography, post-photography, and curating in digital spaces. She is the Curator and Gallery Manager at Lullin + Ferrari Gallery and is responsible for art and architecture projects at the Canton of Zurich. Anna is also part of the team at Screen Walks, a collaborative project by Fotomuseum Winterthur and The Photographers’ Gallery that investigates the evolving role of photographic images in networked and digital spaces. Additionally, she is a member of the pool collective, a self-organized group of artists and creatives in Zurich working in photography, and serves on the committee of near.association, which promotes contemporary Swiss photography and fosters critical discourse in the field.

Anne Gabriel-Jürgens

Audrey Zimmerli

Thanks to: Nassim Daghighian (founder of near.), and all past committee members.

Contact

near. CH–1000 Lausanne info@near.li Instagram Subscribe to our newsletter

Partners

To be updated…

Support

near. is supported by:

Etat de Vaud
Ville de Lausanne

near. is a non-profit association with a legal tax-exempt status which allows deductible donations. IBAN: CH24 0900 0000 1025 5587 4 Bank: Swiss Post – PostFinance, CH-3030 Bern

Credits

Concept, Design and Code: UNSTATED Font: Everett by Nolan Paparelli Copyright © 2024, near., Lausanne, Switzerland. All rights reserved. No content may be reproduced or distributed without the written permission by near. and the photographers.

Ecole de l’infanterie 2, Colombier, mars 2023, from the series Milice, 2022-2023.

Mess (cantine) des officiers et sous-officiers, Ecole d’artillerie et d’exploration 31, Bière, février 2023, from the series Milice, 2022-2023.

Ecole d’artillerie et d’exploration 31, Bière, septembre 2022, from the series Milice, 2022-2023.

Lieutenant Honegger, Ecole d’artillerie et d’exploration 31, Bière, février 2023, from the series Milice, 2022-2023.

Ecole de l’infanterie 2, Colombier, mars 2023, from the series Milice, 2022-2023.

Sergent Jungen, Bienne, juin 2022, from the series Milice, 2022-2023.

Ecole d’artillerie et d’exploration 31, Bière, septembre 2022, from the series Milice, 2022-2023.

Portrait du Général Guisan, Ecole d’artillerie et d’exploration 31, Bière, septembre 2022, from the series Milice, 2022-2023.

Soldat Silveira, Genève, juin 2022, from the series Milice, 2022-2023.

Katameya Dunes compound, from the series The Ring Road, 2023-2024.

Nadia Mounier, from the series The Ring Road, 2023-2024.

Dar El-Salam, from the series The Ring Road, 2023-2024.

Qursayah island, from the series The Ring Road, 2023-2024.

Salma Shehattah, from the series The Ring Road, 2023-2024.

Katameya Dunes compound, from the series The Ring Road, 2023-2024.

Mokattam corniche, from the series The Ring Road, 2023-2024.

Demolition of Darb1718, from the series The Ring Road, 2023-2024.

Mahmoud Khattab, from the series The Ring Road, 2023-2024.

Mokattam corniche, from the series The Ring Road, 2023-2024.

Amr El Kafrawy, from the series The Ring Road, 2023-2024.

Milice

Milice examines representation in the Swiss army in relation to the construction of identities at recruit school. While every masculine citizen has to serve, the perspective of personal involvement in armed conflict does not exist in regards to swiss neutrality. However, the figure of the soldier is strongly anchored in Swiss culture and the collective imagination. In this way, I observe the attraction-repulsion dichotomy experienced towards the military institution, violence and war.

The Ring Road

Cairo has grown unchecked for centuries, now hemmed in by the Ring Road, which separates diverse, often contrasting neighbourhoods. Hastily built, empty structures stand beside densely populated, bisected communities. Economic disparity is stark, with affluent residents secluded in exclusive compounds and working-class neighbourhoods increasingly crowded. Public green spaces are disappearing or privatized, eroding Cairo’s socio-cultural heritage and natural beauty. This cultural and environmental loss has spurred some citizens to resist through art and conservation efforts, challenging the regime’s relentless push for modernization and profit-driven expansion.

Mathilde Widmann

Mathilde Widmann (1997, CH) graduated from the Vevey School of Photography (CEPV) in 2023, after studying History & Aesthetics of Cinema and Social Sciences at the University of Lausanne (UNIL) in 2021.
She dedicates herself to documentary photography. She has carried out two projects to this day : Milice (2022-2023), portraying young recruits from the Swiss army and The Ring Road (2023-2024) on the modernization of Cairo and its effects on individuals during a six-month residency (SKK/CVC and Ville de Lausanne) in Cairo.
She aims to build stories that deal with global issues from the intimate and the detailed. She is particularly interested in notions of community or ideological belonging, environment/nature, preservation and memory.

Location

Lausanne, Vaud

Contact

Awards

2023Winner of the SKK/CVC and Ville de Lausanne residency in Cairo

Exhibitions

2023Piece of Cake, group diploma show, CEPV, Vevey, Switzerland
Are you a magician ?, group show in collaboration with Théâtre de Vidy, Lausanne, Switzerland
2022Parade Parade, group show and publication, CEPV, Festival Image, Vevey, Switzerland
Nature, Formes, Figures, group show in collaboration with EPFL, Onex, Switzerland

Publications

2024Let the Wind take care of Everything, collective publication, published jointly by CEPV, the ALICE workshop (EPFL) and Mörel Books

Awards

2023Winner of the SKK/CVC and Ville de Lausanne residency in Cairo

Exhibitions

2023Piece of Cake, group diploma show, CEPV, Vevey, Switzerland
Are you a magician ?, group show in collaboration with Théâtre de Vidy, Lausanne, Switzerland
2022Parade Parade, group show and publication, CEPV, Festival Image, Vevey, Switzerland
Nature, Formes, Figures, group show in collaboration with EPFL, Onex, Switzerland

Publications

2024Let the Wind take care of Everything, collective publication, published jointly by CEPV, the ALICE workshop (EPFL) and Mörel Books