Discover the exhibition ‘I'D RATHER HAVE HEART THAN TALENT ANY DAY’ at the Galerie Focale in Nyon.
This work was created at the end of 2024 during an artist residency in the town of Eiheiji, a rural community of around 18,000 inhabitants located in Fukui Prefecture, Japan. There, I shared the daily life of a group of elderly women with whom I formed bonds during my stay.
In a country where life expectancy is among the highest in the world and where the population is ageing rapidly, older people exert a significant social and familial influence. They preserve traditional crafts, local history and spiritual teachings, ensuring the continuity of a cultural identity that balances modernity and the past.
I'D RATHER HAVE HEART THAN TALENT ANY DAY was born out of the mystery of encountering and connecting with others, in a moment suspended between the visible and the invisible, the domesticated and the wild, the natural and the artificial, and, above all, in the slowness of a time that I no longer thought possible to experience.
Camila Svenson, a photographer based in São Paulo, explores the links between memory, fiction and perception of reality. Her work has been presented in international institutions and festivals in Brazil, the United States, Europe and Japan. Winner of several awards and residencies, she will participate in the Tokyo Biennale in 2025.
