Sediments of Happiness

Curated with Carol Baumgartner

2018
Photoforum Pasquart, for the Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography

Sediments of Happiness is a project articulated around the relations between photography, memory and happiness. On the wall of our homes, on the screens of our phones or inside our wallets, we all keep precious images linked to happiness, which we like to contemplate and even carry on us. The reflex of photographing our loved ones and the blissful moments of our lives runs deep and the relations between photography, memory and happiness are as deep as they are complex. The Photoforum explores them through the testimonies and reflections of the elderly. Born in the first half of the 20th century, they have accumulated memories and images over numerous decades, which serve as the basis of the Photoforum’s exhibition. The exhibition at the Photoforum consists of 28 video interviews and about 50 portraits produced with the support of the homes’ therapeutic recreation teams, presented in a scenography reconstituting a 1950s living-room.