Bright Celebration: Joy as an Act of Resistance
Miren Amaya Hernandez
Espace Berger
October 20 to November 10, 2026
Opening on October 20 at 6pm
Today, crises and the images that accompany them occupy a constant place in our daily lives. Being exposed to them again and again breeds a kind of unease, one that gradually reshapes how we see the world.
The exhibition "Bright Celebration" grows out of this observation, yet it seeks neither to flee reality nor to deny it. Instead, it offers a pause, a slight shift in perspective. To celebrate, here, is not to turn one's back on the world, but on the contrary, to reclaim a place within it, to bring to life a sensitive space that our times tend to erase. Joy is not a trivial feeling: it is a force that keeps us standing.
Bathed in light, Miren Amaya Hernandez's works reveal simple moments, intimate gardens, small and subtle sensations. Through their vivid colors and composition, they bring us back to a sense of lightness.
For the length of a visit, the artist invites us to ask ourselves: what does joy still mean today, and what purpose does it serve?
Choosing joy thus becomes a stance: that of resisting the idea that the darkness of the world could extinguish every light of hope within us.
Through this series of paintings and installations, Miren Amaya Hernandez offers us another way of looking: slower, more attentive, able to welcome what feels good, not against reality, but as another way of inhabiting it.
Here, looking becomes a gesture. Feeling becomes a stance.
Artist's biography
Born in Venezuela, Miren Amaya Hernandez has lived in Switzerland since 1995 and now works in Saint-Sulpice (VD). A graduate in mechanical engineering from EPFL, she has devoted herself since 2002 to a multidisciplinary artistic practice spanning photography, Chinese ink, ceramics, installation, and risography.
Her work explores the connections between science, light, and the human condition. The heart, celestial bodies, and nature recur as familiar motifs, while her fascination with light phenomena gives rise to abstract and sensitive research. Attentive to materials, particularly reclaimed ones, she repurposes and transforms them to create works where poetry, humor, and fragility intertwine.
Her work has been exhibited in Switzerland, Europe, and Latin America, notably as part of Fragments of Light (2025), Reflet de l'incertitude (2025), Juegos de Lumière (2023-2024), and Sacré Cœur (2023). She received the FAE-UNIL photo prize in 2018 and served on the jury of the 19th Salón de Arte Postal in Venezuela in 2025.
Works dossier
This exhibition brings together several series of works that each explore, in their own way, two shared themes: sharing and joy.
Photography, sculpture, drawing, collage, and textile all become meeting grounds between nature, inner world, and imagination. Traditional craftsmanship plays a central role in the making of these works.
