The photographic project ‘Genève, sa gueule’ started in March 2014, inspired in part by Humans of New York and similar projects elsewhere and instigated by Agenda 21 – Sustainable City department of the City of Geneva, Switzerland. The objective of the project is to give a human face to the story of Geneva’s diversity, acknowledging and revealing its extent. Photo sessions, at which brief life stories are also presented in written form, have now produced over 2,000 portrait images and matching biographies. No-one who wanted to contribute was excluded, and there is no attempt to reflect the demographics of the city in accurate proportions. Some of the photos were taken at completely open events, such as street fairs, whereas for others the project’s staff sought out the less ‘visible’ members of the society, such as the elderly, disabled or those living in refugee centres. These images were used for poster campaigns and gallery exhibitions in 2015-17. Social media in general was rather difficult to utilise, because, although those who were pictured in the project signed consent forms, the organisers were cautious to post images and information about anyone who might receive racial or other abuse as a result.

The stories imply a shared sense of belonging to Geneva as much as the images show diversity. Questions on the forms included things like, ‘What do you like/hate about Geneva?’ designed to pick up on commonalities, and they asked everyone to put down the origins of their grandparents, so that some of those born in Switzerland might have to think for a moment about their own immigrant backgrounds. Subjects of the photos were also invited to the exhibition launch, while those who visited the galleries who were not already in the exhibits could sit for their own photographs and contribute their own stories.