Laurence Bonvin. Looking Back Ahead

This monograph is dedicated to the work of Swiss photographer and filmmaker Laurence Bonvin. The publication covers nearly twenty years of Bonvin’s work (2005–2022). It compiles a selection of twenty of her photographic series, some of which have never been shown publicly before, as well as four of her films. Bonvin’s works were created all around the globe – from the suburbs of Istanbul to the Japanese region of Tōhoku, from Johannesburg to the Distrito Federal in Brasília, from Las Vegas to Switzerland.

In her work, Laurence Bonvin takes a critical and sensitive approach to the topics she deals with, whether teritory development or the use of natural resources, or the relationships between the living, the built world and power. Some of her projects allow her to explore a particular place in greater depth and to illustrate global phenomena through the lens of a specific environment and a clearly defined territory. The artist’s documentary approach is the main focus of this publication.

The book is being published in collaboration with the Musée d’art du Valais/Kunstmuseum Wallis in Sion, which awarded Laurence Bonvin its First Monograph Grant (Bourse première monographie/Stipendium erste Monographie) in 2025.