Inaugural visit: From Shadow to Light: Genevan Painting (1444–1782)

John M Armleder presents an interchange-based exhibition that foregrounds objects drawn from students’ suitcases. Through object-based works and subtle interventions, the show probes modes of observation, intimacy and collective memory. Personal belongings are rearranged as visual prompts that evoke histories, pedagogy and everyday cinematics. The artist’s restrained interventions invite reflection on how small domestic items circulate meanings and facilitate encounters, revealing how private narratives surface within a communal field of attention.

This exhibition explores the careers of Édouard Naville, Switzerland’s pioneering Egyptologist, and his wife Marguerite Naville, whose contributions alongside him are now recognised in their own right. Through archival documents, excavation records and pharaonic objects, the presentation illuminates their archaeological practice and Marguerite’s role, while situating their work within the political, religious and humanitarian commitments that shaped scholarly life at the turn of the twentieth century.

In French and in English.

Serval (graffiti artist) and Kalonji (illustrator) present a collaborative practice that foregrounds exchange and creation in dialogue with existing artworks. Through drawing, layered surfaces and direct mark-making, they blur boundaries between street art and illustration, producing works that oscillate between improvisation and composition. The exhibition probes authorship, apprenticeship and public conversation, revealing how ephemeral gestures and graphic forms can reframe familiar images and provoke new modes of looking.

In French.