The Photoforum Pasquart is delighted to present a solo exhibition by Naara Bahler as part of Biel/Bienne Photography Festival 2025. This year’s edition of the festival is dedicated to the theme “Horizons”, exploring how landscapes are perceived, used, and represented.

Whether urban, forested, or industrial, landscapes are not just physical spaces but also cultural and emotional constructs. They are described, mapped, photographed, and interpreted. Bieler Fototage 2025 explores new horizons in landscape representation, showcasing artistic perspectives that challenge and redefine our relationship with the environment.

Through a poetic and experimental approach, Naara Bahler examines the relationship between humans and nature. Her work resonates with the festival theme by offering a personal and sensory exploration of landscapes and their depiction.

Have we forgotten how to contemplate mother earth?
This is the question Naara Bahler poses through her work, inviting viewers into a state of reflection and connection. Drawing on personal memories of childhood spent observing nature, Bahler’s artistic process emerges from a contemplative state where spirituality and creativity intertwine.

Her work combines analog and cyanotypic photographic techniques, seamlessly merging contemporary life with natural elements. Flowers, leaves, and traces of humanity form compositions that evoke harmony and mysticism, often conjuring otherworldly beings. These creations highlight the tension between permanence and ephemerality, addressing how digital images can distance us from the tactile, yet providing a space for rediscovery.

Through her slow, deliberate practice, which often spans months, Bahler invites the viewer to pause and reflect on their connection to the earth. Her work encourages a voluntary search for a deeper bond with mother earth, a reminder that we are all part of something greater.

Event: Contemplative Frequencies
Saturday, May 24, 2025, 11:15–12:30 (f/d/e)
Join Naara Bahler and sound artist Eric Rüeger for a meditative, performative event exploring Bahler’s reflections on the question “Have we forgotten how to look at Mother Earth?” Through live sound and an immersive exhibition setting, this unique collaboration invites visitors to pause, reflect, and engage in a dialogue between visual art and sound. The performance will be live-streamed by Lumpen Station.

Biography
Naara Bahler (*1989) was born and raised in Argentina to artisan parents—a Chilean mother and a Swiss father. From 2009 to 2011, she studied clinical laboratory technology and radiology at the National University of Córdoba. Her journey into photography began in 2013, driven by a fascination with the material aspects of the medium. Bahler focuses on analog photography and techniques like cyanotype, working with diverse materials such as fabrics and paper to create unique exhibition objects. Entirely self-taught, she has been continuously exploring and refining these experimental processes. Bahler currently lives and works between Brazil and Switzerland.

This exhibition is made possible thanks to the support of Burgergemeinde Bern.