Photo Elysée

8

Exhibition

Hannah Darabi

Hannah Darabi, winner of the 2025 Prix Elysée, delves into Iran’s popular dance scene with Why Don’t You Dance? By combining photographs, videos and archival pieces, the artist shows how, depending on the social and political context, people – especially members of the Iranian diaspora – can use dancing as a way of expressing their identity and freeing themselves. Inspired by the autobiography of Mahvash, a leading Iranian cabaret figure of the 1950s, and by karaoke evenings at the Cabaret Tehran in Los Angeles, Darabi links past and present dance practices. The Prix Elysée is an award created by Photo Elysée and Parmigiani Fleurier in an exclusive partnership.

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Exhibition

Ella Maillart

Adventurer, photographer and writer Ella Maillart (1903–1997) traversed Asia several times in the 20th century. In 2025, her entire body of work was added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in recognition of its importance. Photo Elysée, which has held her photographic archives – consisting of thousands of images – since 1988, pays tribute to Maillart with this exhibition. Focusing on Maillart’s four major journeys to Asia in the 1930s, the exhibition sets her images in dialogue with her writings and shows how her work serves as a record of a pivotal time in global history.

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Exhibition

Alfredo Jaar

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Exhibition

Alfredo Jaar

Inferno & Paradiso26.06 – 01.11.2026 Inferno & Paradiso is an immersive installation created by Alfredo Jaar (b. 1956), a fixture in the international contemporary art world. In this groundbreaking project, Jaar posits that the onslaught of images of human suffering is dulling our sensitivity. Twenty press photographers from around the world were asked to select two images from their respective portfolios – the most painful one they had taken and a hopeful one. Through these images, shown as slide projections, the photographers take us on a journey through heaven and hell, just as Virgil guided Dante in The Divine Comedy. This exhibition, co-produced with the cultural association On The Move, was developed for the Cortona On The Move international photography festival.

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