Photo Elysée announces the inclusion of the Ella Maillart and Annemarie Schwarzenbach archives in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. This international recognition highlights the exceptional historical and cultural value of these collections, preserved in part by Photo Elysée, and affirms Ella Maillart’s significant role in the history of photography and journalism.
Ella Maillart
Photographic Encounters
06.03 – 01.11.2026
No online reservation required
Ella Maillart (1903–1997) was an extraordinary adventurer, as well as a photographer and writer, who spent extended periods of time in Asia. In 2025, her entire body of work was recognized by UNESCO. Photo Elysée wishes to pay tribute to this exceptional woman by drawing on her photographic archives, which consist of several thousand photographs all held in the museum’s collection.
The exhibition, structured around Maillart’s four major trips to Asia in the 1930s, highlights the linkages between her images and her writing and explores how her photographic legacy adds to and perpetuates the memory of the world.
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Credits
Ella Maillart. Photographic Encounters
Curators
Fanny Brülhart and Elisa Rodríguez Castresana
With the collaboration of Lisa Benaroyo
Scenography and graphic design
Balmer Hählen
Proofreading
Audrey Zimmerli
Translations
Scala Wells Sàrl
Flavia Ambrosetti
Julia A. Noack
Digitization
Anthony Rochat, with the collaboration of Sofia Napoli
Acknowledgements
Photo Elysée would like to express its sincere thanks to Anneliese Hollmann, the Ella Maillart Foundation and its President Jean-Claude Zufferey, the Bibliothèque de Genève, the Cinémathèque suisse, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), as well as the lender of the exhibition.
Partners
The exhibition receives the generous support of the Federal Office of Culture, Piguet Galland, the Fondation Coromandel, as well as the Fondation Bru.
