EXHIBITION OF THE PRIX IMAGES VEVEY X ECAL: LEA SBLANDANO
24.09–21.12.2025
L'Appartement – Espace Images Vevey

The Images Vevey × ECAL Prize was created in 2021 to strengthen the collaboration between the two institutions. Each year, it offers a graduate from ECAL’s Bachelor or Master Photography programme a first solo exhibition opportunity. The awarded project is presented as a monographic exhibition by Images Vevey, either during its biennale or in its permanent space.

Winner of the Images Vevey × ECAL Prize 2024, Lea Sblandano presents Neijuan, a project developed during her Bachelor in Photography at ECAL.

“Neijuan,” a Mandarin slang word meaning “involution,” refers to a withdrawal into oneself, a symptom of an increasingly fast and competitive society. Through a documentary and collaborative approach, the artist follows a group of people she met online in forums, video games and chat platforms, where new identities emerge outside the norms of the physical world.

The exhibition unfolds across three spaces:
The Corridor, a threshold between the real and the virtual, combining portraits and urban landscapes.
The Living Room, where the Neijuan book mock-up revisits key images of her research, oscillating between avatars, Asian megacities and reflections on the sexualisation of bodies.
The Cinema, an immersive installation of nine screens showing videos, webcams and avatars, centred on Kei, a virtual roommate living in Japan.

This work blurs the boundaries between real and virtual, questioning connected solitude, fragmented identities and the transformation of intimate spaces.