When Valérie Belin and I talk about the importance of an outside view on artist's work, a view that invites questioning and informed choices, the French photographer and visual artist readily admits that it was the one Photo Elysée gave her that counted. It was in 2008-2009, when the Lausanne museum organized a retrospective of her work in the form of a series of photographs. Previously, William A. Ewing, former director of the institution, had solicited Valérie Belin, whose "unique vision" and "way of perpetually reinventing herself" he praised, for several books and collective exhibitions.
For more than ten years, this privileged relationship has been punctuated by trips back and forth between Paris and Lausanne, between conferences, meetings and exhibitions. Photo Elysée was not a one-shot, as is often the case," explains Valérie Belin from her Paris apartment. There is a real continuity in time. It's very stimulating for an artist that interest persists, to be encouraged in our evolution. To see that the themes treated still resonate." For the Frenchwoman, the museum represents an anchor point in Switzerland, a country whose photographic tradition is very present.