Photo Elysée museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, has opened its doors to showcase Generation Z's artistic vision through a major photography exhibition running until February 1, 2026. The exhibition, titled "Gen Z: A New Perspective," features 66 artists aged 22 to 32 from 32 different countries, offering visitors an unprecedented look at how this generation perceives and represents both the world around them and their personal experiences.
This landmark exhibition marks the museum's renewed commitment to emerging artists, following in the footsteps of the foundational "reGeneration" exhibition from 20 years ago. Photo Elysée organizes this important showcase every five years to discover new trends and promising talents in contemporary photography. "We identified these artists through various festivals, magazines, and extensively through Instagram," explained Nathalie Herschdorfer, director of Photo Elysée in Lausanne and co-curator of the exhibition, during a television interview on October 8. "However, those who have developed strong photographic voices have, in most cases, been trained in art schools."
The exhibition highlights the distinctive characteristics of Generation Z, born between the mid-1990s and 2010, a demographic heavily influenced by social media and recent global events, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic. All featured artists challenge norms and stereotypes, break conventional codes, and seek to establish their unique place in the art world. "What struck us most is that whether artists come from Lagos or Melbourne, there are remarkably similar ways of representing their community, friends, and family," observed Herschdorfer. "I believe this is truly the influence of social media."
The pandemic has had a significant impact on these young artists' photographic practices and creative approaches. "This is a generation that lived through COVID," noted Julie Dayer, another co-curator of the exhibition. "What do we have at our disposal? We have our own bodies, our own stories, these family archives. It's also an entry into photographic practice that is made from the elements we have around us." This constraint led to innovative artistic expressions as artists turned inward and worked with immediately available resources.
One of the most striking trends showcased in the exhibition is the predominance of self-portraiture as a preferred means of artistic expression. "Photographers stage themselves in the act of self-representation," explained Dayer. "It's not someone else representing me; it's really me taking possession of my body, my image, and sharing myself in the way I want to do it." This approach reflects Generation Z's desire to control their own image and express themselves authentically without intermediaries, a departure from traditional photographer-subject relationships.
The exhibition "Gen Z: A New Perspective" offers a unique opportunity to discover how this new generation of photographers perceives and represents the world surrounding them. Through their lenses, visitors can explore multiple perspectives on subjects including identity, community, migration, environment, and contemporary social issues. The diverse range of topics reflects the generation's engagement with pressing global concerns and their personal experiences navigating modern society.
The diversity of geographical and cultural origins among the featured artists also highlights both similarities and differences in photographic approaches across the world, while emphasizing the global impact of social media on artistic creation. Despite coming from vastly different backgrounds, the artists share common visual languages and thematic concerns, demonstrating how digital connectivity has created new forms of artistic dialogue across borders.
The exhibition organizers emphasize that this showcase is not sociological in nature and did not seek to be "exhaustive or balance the perspectives" of Generation Z on the world. Rather, it was the "artistic quality of the works" that dictated the selection process by the three exhibition curators: Nathalie Herschdorfer, Hannah Pröbsting, and Julie Dayer. This focus on artistic merit ensures that visitors experience the highest caliber of contemporary photography while gaining insights into generational perspectives.
"Gen Z: A New Perspective" runs at Photo Elysée in Lausanne from September 19, 2025, through February 1, 2026, providing an extended opportunity for art enthusiasts and the general public to engage with this significant survey of contemporary photographic talent and generational artistic expression.
