How do we want to live as a community and strengthen each other in the process?

The exhibition Wahlfamilie - Zusammen weniger allein is currently on display at the Fotomuseum Winterthur until October 16, 2022. Using works from the Fotomuseum Winterthur collection as well as international positions, it sheds light on how the family (of choice) is negotiated and depicted photographically as a social and cultural construct. Director Nadine Wietlisbach curates the contemporary exhibition and provides a concise yet in-depth insight.

Nadine Wietlisbach is director of the Fotomuseum Winterthur and curates the current exhibition. Photo: Anne Morgenstern

The exhibition Wahlfamilie - Zusammen weniger allein runs from June 10 to October 16, 2022 at the Fotomuseum Winterthur.

Among other things, the photographers deal with their own family history.

What does "(elective) family" mean to you personally?
For me personally, it means going through everyday life together with a sense of humor, sharing joy and sorrow and strengthening each other. A family of choice is also about actively choosing each other again and again and being aware of your own privileges.

What can visitors expect from the current exhibition "Family of Choice - Together Less Alone" and what makes it special?
The exhibition and the publication published by Christoph Merian Verlag are intended to highlight the diversity of photographic and critical approaches to families (of choice) and their idiosyncrasies, passions and shortcomings. They are an offer to think together about how we want to live together as a community and how we can strengthen each other in the process - regardless of whether we live in couples and/or family constellations, with or without children, are "related by blood" or have chosen each other.

The exhibition brings together various narrative strands on the basis of which the photographers were selected. Some of the artists deal with their own biographies and family histories and work through these using photographs from the family archive and contemporary photographic documents. Others rearrange their own family structures by staging their family members, who thus become accomplices in the creation of the images. The documentation and collaborative exploration of communities that live solidarity outside of (blood) kinship is also an attempt to break up entrenched (role) images and questions ideas of the traditional family. The exhibition also examines the act of photography itself, which accompanies, documents and manages to capture intimacy as a fundamental yet fleeting element. Some of the selected photographers combine all of these aspects in their work, while in others a methodical working or narrative style is particularly recognizable.

From the outset, the Fotomuseum Winterthur was also keen to involve people close to us - by this we mean the city of Winterthur, where the heart of our museum beats, and the whole of Switzerland, which is small enough to be considered close - in the considerations about family pictures. Through an open call, the museum was looking for people who would like to share a single family picture or perhaps one or more albums with us - and their story(s). The pictures that reached us in this way also bear witness to moments of happiness, loss and a full life with all its voids - photography plays its own role here too.

How did the selection of the various family portraits come about?
I worked on the curatorial selection for a total of two and a half years, and some of the works were then further developed specifically for the Fotomuseum Winterthur and our premises. The installations by Charlie Engman and Leonard Suryajaya, for example, take up entire walls. As with all curatorial projects, as a curator I have to decide for and against the inclusion of numerous photographers - that is part of the process. Our selection is diverse in terms of age and cultural identity and brings together a variety of visual languages.

Interview: Alessia Baumgartner