Adrien Missika Wins 13th Ricard Foundation Prize

Adrien Missika, a Swiss photographer and video artist, won the 13th Prix de la Fondation d'entreprise Ricard in October 2011, selected by Éric Troncy from the exhibition The Seabass. Since graduating from the École cantonale d'art de Lausanne in 2007, Missika has exhibited at the Centre culturel suisse de Paris, Barcelona, and Tokyo. He co-founded the gallery 1m3 with Jeanne Graff, Benjamin Valenza, and Stéphane Barbier Bouvet, also working as a curator. In 2009, he was selected by Michel Nuridsany for the Rencontres internationales de la photographie d'Arles and invited to the Modules du Palais de Tokyo (HMI), with his first solo show at the Centre d'art contemporain de Genève. His work spans photography and video, exploring themes of authenticity, time, and monumentality. Key videos include Sailing Stones (filmed at Racetrack Playa, Death Valley National Park, California), Black Sand Beach, and Dome (shot in Super8 at the unfinished International Fair of Tripoli, featuring architecture by Oscar Niemeyer). Missika describes his practice as giving a 'relative definition of the monument,' focusing on point of view and scale.