Laurence BONVIN

"Aletsch Negative"

Studio Images / House of photography

19 November —19 December 2025

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Aletsch Negative is a multi-channel video installation dedicated to the Aletsch Glacier, the

largest glacier in the Alps. It is located in the canton of Valais, Switzerland, where Laurence

Bovin was born. According to geologists, most glaciers will have disappeared by the end of

the 21st century, and only fragments of the Aletsch will remain.

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The video installation offers a careful and intimate observation of this ice giant, combining

close-ups of ice and snow with their gradual transformation into increasingly large streams of

water. It is an experimental animated documentary film based on photographs taken during a

residency on the glacier in 2018. Animation was chosen both to make the acceleration of the

melting process—which is extremely rapid in the Alps—more tangible and to minimize the

amount of equipment that needed to be transported up the mountain. It was also a way of

merging two mediums: photography and video.

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The exhibition presented at Studio Images / House of Photography is an immersive,

multi-channel version of Aletsch Negative, a new site-specific installation consisting of four

videos projected in pairs on opposite walls. The soundtrack, composed of simple field

recordings, was created in collaboration with a composer and sound designer from Zurich.

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Bio

Laurence Bonvin is a Swiss photographer and filmmaker. She studied photography at the

École nationale supérieure de la photographie in Arles, France, graduating in 1991. Her

work, both poetic and political, takes a documentary approach. It focuses on peripheral

territories and landscapes, “no man's lands” undergoing both physical and societal changes.

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Her work has been extensively exhibited in Switzerland and internationally. To date, she has

published five books of her photographs and released five short and medium-length films

that have been selected and screened at major international film festivals.

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She has taught photography at ECAL (University of Art and Design) in Lausanne since 2001.

She currently lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal, and Switzerland.

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