Gruyères Castle opens its doors to AEON, a visual research project conducted by Marcel Rickli since 2018. Within the walls of the medieval fortress, the Zurich-based artist presents a fascinating exploration of highly sensitive sites whose memory must imperatively be passed on to future generations.

The photographer enters in impressive, yet discreet, buildings and reveals scientific experiments scenes as well as storage sites for radioactive waste produced by the power industry, medicine and research. Between documentary and artistic creation, Marcel Rickli unveils these new tombs of eternity, monuments destined to contain the threat over hundreds, even thousands of years. With his images, the artist also tests our ability to transmit information over a period that exceeds that of human writing and, to draw attention to the danger, visualizes modes of communication that can prove the test of time.

Curator of the exhibition
Filipe Dos Santos

Musician, fighter or good luck charm, crickets have held an important place in Chinese tradition for over a millennium. For Photo Esplanade, Laurence Kubski sheds light on this passion that still enflames the Chinese Empire today. Crickets are prized for their strident song, but also for fighting. Sometimes traded for thousands of yuan, the precious insects compete in the arena to the public’s delight, who, despite the ban, sometimes gamble discreetly on a champion.

In Crickets, the photographer from Fribourg explores the corn fields of Shandong or the vast animal markets of the big cities. Meeting insect hunters, traders and collectors, Laurence Kubski delivers a series of finely composed images in which she probes the relationship of the Chinese with this emblematic animal.

Curator of the exhibition
Filipe Dos Santos

The Gruyères Castle invites Myriam Mechita to take possession of its walls for its summer exhibition. Filled with great poetry, the deep black drawings of the French artist spread throughout the rooms and reveal a bewitching universe of light and shadows. In her works, sometimes monumental, she explores the depths of the soul and creates visions that oscillate furtively between monstrous and sublime, between ecstasy and melancholy.

Fascinated by spaces of transition and the strangeness of daily life, Myriam Mechita brings together the extremes in her drawings and creates a work bursting with symbols and striking emotions. In an ardent gesture, the artist moves into the interstices of the real and the fantastic and gives shape to the passions of body and soul by capturing troubling moments on paper.

Curator of the exhibition
Filipe Dos Santos