Welcome to Biel, ephemeral capital of Swiss photography
Noah Krattiger, School of Visual Arts Bern and Biel, Graphic design class 2nd year
Noah Krattiger
Julian Charrière, Polygon
Julian Charrière
Julian Charrière, Polygon
Julian Charrière
Jean Revillard, Ondes
Jean Revillard/Rezo.ch
Jean Revillard, Ondes
Jean Revillard/Rezo.ch
Jean Revillard, Ondes
Jean Revillard/Rezo.ch
Florent Meng, Notes on H2
Florent Meng
Letizia Tedaldi, School of Visual Arts Berne and Biel, Graphic design class 2nd year
letizia Tedaldi
Thomas Egli, Paradise Island
Thomas Egli
Catherine Leutenegger, New Artificiality, 2016
Catherine Leutenegger Photography
Catherine Leutenegger, New Artificiality, 2016
Catherine Leutenegger Photography
Carlotta Schmeiser, School of Visual Arts Berne and Biel, Graphic design class 2nd year
Carlotta Schmeiser
The city of Biel, known for being a center of the global watch industry, also is a cultural crossroads of national importance. For nearly a month every year, the largest bilingual city in the country welcomes a festival dedicated entirely to photography.
This content was published on
Journalist and deputy head of the swissinfo.ch editorial group for German, French and Italian. Earlier, worked for Teletext and Switzerland’s French-language national broadcaster.
Thomas Kern was born in Switzerland in 1965. Trained as a photographer in Zürich, he started working as a photojournalist in 1989. He was a founder of the Swiss photographers agency Lookat Photos in 1990. Thomas Kern has won twice a World Press Award and has been awarded several Swiss national scholarships. His work has been widely exhibited and it is represented in various collections.
The Biel Festival of PhotographyExternal link, which runs from May 5th to 28th, is an opportunity to discover the heritage of this often unknown Swiss city – while also enjoying a bit of physical exercise. The 28 exhibitions presented at the 21st edition of the festival, three-quarters of which are exclusively Swiss or worldwide, are distributed in eight separate venues.
Among them are three unusual locations: the Farel House, a witness to the architecture of the late 1950s; a former abandoned industrial building; and the Working Station, a private gallery space.
This years’s festival focuses on the notion of what is extreme. The themes dealt with are multiple: the flow of images, the omnipresence of technology, and the excesses of a global society. It presents a sophisticated panorama of emerging photography from Switzerland and around the world to an informed or simply curious audience.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.