The Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography is dedicated to Swiss and international emerging photography and takes place every spring in Biel.

For its 25th edition, the Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography examines restoration and the process of recovery by way of the image. In an era of accelerating social change and of a polarization of society, photography is often used as a filter for protecting oneself from experiencing a reality that can sometimes be intolerable, hostile or even destructive. But the photographic image can also be a means of reconstruction and recovery after personal upheavals or shared disasters. Can images be the beginning of a process of healing?

Mental recovery, construction of identity, historical reconstruction: the artists and projects presented in this year’s edition explore the practice of the image as a tool for restoring a relationship between the individual and the world that has been damaged and sometimes even broken. This year’s exhibition itinerary presents an examination of the weight of a cultural heritage. Some works aspire to restore the feeling of belonging to a community (whether real or virtual), while others aim at rewriting a history.

This year, the festival also has the pleasure of welcoming the Bern artist Reto Camenisch for a new exhibition. The Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography is also launching a new website which will highlight the festival’s archives by giving them a new online visibility.