February 4 – April 16, 2023

Karla Hiraldo Voleau: Another Love Story

Karla Hiraldo Voleau’s solo exhibition Another Love Story proposes a reflection on the photographic medium and its place as a silent witness of our love relationships in the digital present. Based on a devastating personal story, the artist developed a series of photographs and texts that reconstruct and replicate the last months of her relationship with a man before she found out he was leading a double-life. What to do when you fall in love with a ‘ghost’? And how to reclaim meaningful intimate relationships and love by refusing to be the victime of the story? Karla Hiraldo Voleau decided to re-appropriate this troubling experience by replaying different moments of their relationship, referring to Social Media aesthetics. She identically reproduced personal photographs the couple had taken in the past year they were together and restaged hundreds of images with the help of an actor, a doppelganger of her companion that she hired for the project. The resulting images fail to capture the truth of a relationship, questioning instead our projections and desires and reveal that the feeling of love remains ultimately elusive in times of self-optimization and hyper-visibility. Another Love Story explores the state of love and intimate social relations today in the age of the Internet and social media – an age characterised by what sociologist Eva Illouz has called “cold intimacies”. The unmaking of social bonds, Illouz argues, is connected to contemporary capitalism which is characterized by practices of non-commitment and non-choice, practices that enable the quick withdrawal from a transaction and the quick realignment of prices and the breaking of loyalties. Karla Hiraldo Voleau’s photographic work mirrors the instrumentalisation of love and its superficialisation in the age of the digital, exposing and simultaneously undermining their enthralling mechanisms.

Karla Hiraldo Voleau, born in 1992, is a French-Dominican artist who lives and works between Lausanne and Paris. After gaining a Master’s Degree in Photography from ECAL in 2018, she published her photo book Hola Mi Amol in 2019. Her work was featured in numerous exhibitions around Europe, including her latest solo show at Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris (2022), Art Basel (2022), and Foam Amsterdam (2020).

A collaboration with the Studio of Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris.

With the kind support of Pro Helvetia and the Canton of Bern

Curated by: Jana Johanna Haeckel

Events

Guided tour with Karla Hiraldo Voleau, Nicolas Polli and Jana J. Haeckel.

Thursday, 2.3.2023, 18:00 (fr/dt).

Artist Talk, Reading and Performance with the artists Karla Hiraldo Voleau, Nicolas Polli et Jenny Rova, Samedi, 8.4.2023, 16:00 (fr/dt/en).

Image © Thalles Piaget

Image © Thalles Piaget

Image © Thalles Piaget

Image © Thalles Piaget

Image © Thalles Piaget