One Bed, Two Blankets, Eighty-Five Rules
Sabine Hess and Nicolas Polli
Dates: 4 - 30 June
Opening Times: Dawn to Dusk
Location: City Hall
A project in continuous evolution, ‘One Bed, Two Blankets, Eighty-Five Rules’ by Sabine Hess and Nicolas Polli, plays with the expectations and ideas of a relationship, establishing rules for living harmoniously. After meeting in Ticino, Switzerland and continuing a long-distance relationship, the couple decided to move in together in 2023 and began a project about their shared life. During an artistic residency in Val Verzasca, Hess and Polli built an imaginary house. Alternating between symbolic representations and dramatisations of their relationship, the project plays with standards and ideas held, establishing rules for living harmoniously. Since then, the project has evolved and continues to reflect on the challenges and changes that the relationship faces in everyday life.
Artists’ Biographies
Sabine Hess is a Swiss-German photographer based in Switzerland. She graduated from the London College of Communication, UAL. Sabine is interested in our relationship with nature, intimate stories of life and togetherness.
Alongside her documentary projects, Hess works in editorial and portrait photography. Her work has appeared in publications such as FT Weekend Magazine, Das Magazin, Die Zeit, M Le Magazine du Monde and Monocle.
Her first book, ‘You Felt the Roots Grow’, was published by Ciao Press and Witty Books in 2023. Her second book, ‘One Bed, Two Blankets, Seventy-Six Rules’, was created in collaboration with Nicolas Polli.
Exhibitions include Kunstmuseum Thun, MBAL Le Locle, Biennale Images Vevey, Centre de la Photographie Genève, Peckham 24, and Verzasca Foto Festival.
Nicolas Polli is a photographer, graphic designer and teacher from Switzerland, who enjoys shifting between personal and commercial matters. Nicolas studied Art Direction at ECAL, École Cantonal d’art de Lausanne, where he currently teaches in both the MA in photography and BA in Visual Communication.
In 2012 Nicolas co-founded YET Magazine, a thematic photography publication that ended after 12 issues in 2020. In 2018 Nicolas Polli founded his own publishing playground CIAO Press, focusing on the edge between photography and contemporary art. Since 2016, he has been developing an independent studio (Atelier CIAO) and focusing on editorial design as well as still life photography. In 2018 and 2020 he won the Swiss Design Award, and since 2021, Nicolas is the resident at Atelier Robert in Biel/Bienne.
Image Credit: Sabine Hess and Nicolas Polli
