Pierre Starobinski

Ah, Lausanne forever! I do not identify myself with a particular place; I am interested in creation and the world, wherever my curiosity and my sensitivity are piqued.

Close to me are the artists’ studios whose work I am most touched by: that of Alain Huck, Jean Scheurer, Catherine Bolle, Olivier Estoppey, or Zaric. I sense particular feelings there, strong emotions and a palpable sensitivity, a striking fragility. The full list of such places would be too long to include here. Of course, they are intimate place that cannot be visited like museums.

I also feel affection for places that smell like ink, the printmakers’ workshops, that of the Genoud printers’ that spit out Luc Chessex’s images or those of other photographer friends. The uniting of books and galleries, preferably before exhibitions. I like to push open the door and discover the nails, the adhesive tape, the paint rollers that will all create the setting, at Alice Pauli’s, or Lucy Mackintosh’s, or Marc Ukaj’s at the Galerie de l’Univers. If I widen my angle, I catch a glimpse of Pierre-Yves Borgeaud, enraptured by the filming of his next film, and a bit further on there is Laurent Cochet’s “black room,” absorbed in his black and white printing on baryt paper, which rekindles hope in photography.

I hear a few music notes, it is François Allaz in his jazz studio, or Francioli and Bourquin who take me on a voyage through a musical garden. Close by I hear Lindemann’s piano. More music: Pescia is casting spells with Schumann’s Carnaval… All of this just around us, just around me. And I mustn’t forget the sparkling and enticing side of the boulevard: Vidy, the Elysée, the Art Brut, Kléber-Méleau, the opera when Porras makes us dream, the Espace Éclair when Jacques Roman is reading… Two thousand characters? I need at least three pages to tell you about Lausanne, the Léman’s inspiring beauty…