Gen Z Photographers Take Heart Stage in New Exhibition

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Four young men stand side by side in profile on a rug, all shirtless and wearing shorts. They face right, holding their hands together in front of them, and one holds a jump rope. A white vertical blind is in the background.
Ziyu Wang, Lads, 2023, from the collection Go Get’Em Boy | © Ziyu Wang

A brand new exhibition spotlights Gen Z photographers, exploring the distinctive themes and views that outline their technology’s creativity.

Running till February 2026, Gen Z: Shaping a New Gaze, an exhibition on the Photo Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland, brings collectively 66 photographers born between the mid-Nineteen Nineties and 2010 from around the globe. The exhibition highlights how this technology questions norms, challenges conventions, and redefines its place in a quickly altering world.

A person wearing traditional Andean clothing and a colorful hat uses a virtual reality headset outdoors, standing against a bright sky and natural landscape.
River Claure Yatiri Puma Punku Bolivia 2019 de la serie Warawar Wawa Son of The Stars 2019 2020 | © River Claure
Four young people stand close together in a bathroom, looking into a mirror. One applies makeup, while another takes a photo with a camera. Towels are stacked on a shelf to the right, and the scene is warmly lit.
Sara Messinger, Self-portrait of me photographing Avril and pals doing make-up at Avril’s seventeenth party, New York, 2022 | © Sara Messinger
A mirror on the floor reflects a woman draped in flowing black fabric, with part of the fabric billowing upward; her bare legs extend from behind the mirror on a concrete surface against a plain wall.
Fatimazohra Serri, Half Seen, Half Imagined, 2023 | © Fatimazohra Serri

Through intimate tales, a number of identities, reinvented household ties, and a delicate exploration of the physique and gender, the exhibition reveals how Gen Z offers voice to a multiplicity of views. The artists assert their want for illustration and their need to talk out in an unstable world context.

Four cheerleaders in white uniforms lift another cheerleader in black high into the air on a football field, with empty bleachers and a cloudy sky in the background. The airborne cheerleader wears a yellow bow and smiles.
Sophia Wilson, Growing Up, 2023 | © Sophia Wilson
A person wearing a gold helmet, blue feathered wings, and "Barbie" underwear stands in jeans on a rooftop surrounded by smoke, holding a large white flag with buildings in the background.
Daniel Obasi, de la série Beautiful Resistance, 2022 | © Daniel Obasi
A person in a yellow outfit floats on their back in a swimming pool, with water rippling around them and their face partially above the water’s surface.
Gabriela Marciniak, Untitled 005, de la série Early Retirement, 2023 | © Gabriela Marciniak, ECAL

“I certainly do not want to claim that you can come in and understand the generation with this exhibition. That is definitely not the case,” Co-curator Hannah Pröbsting says in an interview with Dazed. “But we do feel that the people who don’t expect to be moved are moved. And I think if there’s one thing that I want people to take away, from a photography point of view, it’s that this generation has complete agency over telling their own story.”

Noah Noyan Wenzinger, de la série NOYAN 2015-2022 | © NOYAN
A smiling person with long hair, gold-painted face, and various tattoos poses in a bikini in front of a painting of a galloping brown horse in a grassy field under a blue sky with clouds.
Isabella Madrid, Self-portrait with Horse, 2024, from the collection Buena, Bonita, y Barata | © Isabella Madrid
A close-up of a person's face reflected in a small mirror above a mini bathtub with floral decoration, set against wallpaper with yellow duck illustrations.
Francesca Hummler, Das Badezimmer, 2021, from the collection Unsere Puppenstube | © Francesca Hummler

The exhibition gives an immersive take a look at the problems shaping Generation Z by images, structured round 4 thematic sections. Mapping a Sense of Belonging explores the house as a basis of identification, inspecting archives, recollections, inherited traumas, and new types of cohabitation. Shifting Realities addresses political, social, and environmental upheaval, reflecting themes of exile, instability, and resilience. Beyond the Mirror presents the physique as an area of transformation, with artists questioning gender norms and exploring feelings, psychological well being, and internal life. Finally, Multiplying Perspectives examines race, historical past, and tradition, displaying how Gen Z photographers reclaim their narratives, problem dominant representations, and suggest new visible languages.


Image credit: All photographs courtesy of Photo Elysée.


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