Steve Bisson
Steve Bisson

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Exhibition:
'L'America, tra sogni e disincanti'

Selected works from
Dionisio Gavagnin Collection

Photographs by
Valerio Geraci

September, 2025

On Friday, September 19th at 9:00 PM, in Treviso, Lab27 will inaugurate its 2025/2026 exhibition program with America, Between Dreams and Disenchantment, a show that questions what America still represents today for the Western imagination—an imagination that continues to chase its evolutions, myths, and drifting trajectories.
The exhibition weaves together historical perspectives from the Dionisio Gavagnin Collection—an archive preserving icons of 20th-century American photography—with more contemporary visions from American Eden by Valerio Geraci, who, since 2016, has been driving across the United States in search of the essence, contradictions, rugged beauty, and myth-making force that has fascinated him since childhood.
This is not a linear exhibition, but an elliptical vision, made up of counterpoints, echoes, and connections between past and present. A visual vocabulary built around concepts that for decades have fueled literature, cinema, and above all photography—and which today seem to have reached a critical turning point.

lab27.it

< Back

Exhibition:
'L'America, tra sogni e disincanti'

Selected works from
Dionisio Gavagnin Collection

Photographs by
Valerio Geraci

September, 2025

On Friday, September 19th at 9:00 PM, in Treviso, Lab27 will inaugurate its 2025/2026 exhibition program with America, Between Dreams and Disenchantment, a show that questions what America still represents today for the Western imagination—an imagination that continues to chase its evolutions, myths, and drifting trajectories.
The exhibition weaves together historical perspectives from the Dionisio Gavagnin Collection—an archive preserving icons of 20th-century American photography—with more contemporary visions from American Eden by Valerio Geraci, who, since 2016, has been driving across the United States in search of the essence, contradictions, rugged beauty, and myth-making force that has fascinated him since childhood.
This is not a linear exhibition, but an elliptical vision, made up of counterpoints, echoes, and connections between past and present. A visual vocabulary built around concepts that for decades have fueled literature, cinema, and above all photography—and which today seem to have reached a critical turning point.

lab27.it

Steve Bisson

Steve Bisson is an educator, curator, and writer.
He is the Chair of Photography at the Paris College of Art and co-founder of the international program Blurring the Lines, which fosters intra-academic dialogue and recognizes outstanding graduate work in photography and the visual arts. He is also the founder of the Urbanautica Institute, an online visual anthropology journal that has become a key reference for scholars and photography enthusiasts.
Bisson serves as Editor-in-Chief of the publishing house Penisola Edizioni and as Art Director of Lab27, a cultural center that advocates for issues at the intersection of image-making, photography, and society.
Over the past two decades, Steve Bisson has curated more than a hundred events—including exhibitions and festivals—and authored numerous essays and publications. He has collaborated with cultural and educational institutions worldwide and continuously questions the role of images in society.

 

• Coaching and Portfolio Review

Go to Coaching and Portfolio Review page

 

• Contacts

Facebook / Instagram / info@stevebisson.com

• Teaching
In 2018, Steve Bisson joined Paris College of Art as adjunct faculty and has since then taught in different courses in the Masters of Art (MA) / Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in Photography and Image Making, Masters of Art (MA) in Fashion Film & Photography, Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Photography. In 2022 he was appointed Chair of  Photography Department, and since then directing activities.

Steve Bisson has been delivering lectures, mentoring, and collaborating extensively with leading cultural and educational institutions around the world for the past 15 years and leaning to the understanding of the cultural and social dynamics associated with photography. In 2016, in collaboration with Klaus Fruchtnis, he co-founded Blurring the Lines, an academic network that fosters talent and dialogue in the visual realm.

• Curator
Steve Bisson has curated a wide range of initiatives, including hundreds of exhibitions, festivals, workshops, and events, while exploring contemporary social and cultural themes, as well as civic participatory approaches.

Since 2020, he has been the Art Director of Lab27, a cultural centre in Italy, where he advocates for visual literacy through shows, talks and educational partnership with local schools.

• Publications
Steve Bisson is the chief-editor of  'Urbanautica Journal of Visual Anthropology and Cultural Landscapes', an international editorial platform focused on contemporary photography with a strong emphasis on themes related to visual anthropology, urbanism, and social sciences.

In 2017, he founded the publishing house Penisola Edizioni and sought to enhance humanistic research in art bookmaking.

Bisson also contributed to countless texts, books, studies, magazines, juries.

• Education
Bachelor’s degree in Urban Planning from the Istituto Universitario di Architettura – IUAV of Venice, Italy (2002), and MBA from Kansas University, USA (2004).

—
Design by Roberto Vito D'Amico 

Photo by Ali Ghorbani Moghaddam

Steve Bisson

Steve Bisson is an educator, curator, and writer.
He is the Chair of Photography at the Paris College of Art and co-founder of the international program Blurring the Lines, which fosters intra-academic dialogue and recognizes outstanding graduate work in photography and the visual arts. He is also the founder of the Urbanautica Institute, an online visual anthropology journal that has become a key reference for scholars and photography enthusiasts.
Bisson serves as Editor-in-Chief of the publishing house Penisola Edizioni and as Art Director of Lab27, a cultural center that advocates for issues at the intersection of image-making, photography, and society.
Over the past two decades, Steve Bisson has curated more than a hundred events—including exhibitions and festivals—and authored numerous essays and publications. He has collaborated with cultural and educational institutions worldwide and continuously questions the role of images in society.

 

• Coaching and Portfolio Review

Go to Coaching and Portfolio Review page

 

• Contacts

Facebook / Instagram / info@stevebisson.com

• Teaching
In 2018, Steve Bisson joined Paris College of Art as adjunct faculty and has since then taught in different courses in the Masters of Art (MA) / Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in Photography and Image Making, Masters of Art (MA) in Fashion Film & Photography, Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Photography. In 2022 he was appointed Chair of  Photography Department, and since then directing activities.

Steve Bisson has been delivering lectures, mentoring, and collaborating extensively with leading cultural and educational institutions around the world for the past 15 years and leaning to the understanding of the cultural and social dynamics associated with photography. In 2016, in collaboration with Klaus Fruchtnis, he co-founded Blurring the Lines, an academic network that fosters talent and dialogue in the visual realm.

• Curator
Steve Bisson has curated a wide range of initiatives, including hundreds of exhibitions, festivals, workshops, and events, while exploring contemporary social and cultural themes, as well as civic participatory approaches.

Since 2020, he has been the Art Director of Lab27, a cultural centre in Italy, where he advocates for visual literacy through shows, talks and educational partnership with local schools.

• Publications
Steve Bisson is the chief-editor of  'Urbanautica Journal of Visual Anthropology and Cultural Landscapes', an international editorial platform focused on contemporary photography with a strong emphasis on themes related to visual anthropology, urbanism, and social sciences.

In 2017, he founded the publishing house Penisola Edizioni and sought to enhance humanistic research in art bookmaking.

Bisson also contributed to countless texts, books, studies, magazines, juries.

• Education
Bachelor’s degree in Urban Planning from the Istituto Universitario di Architettura – IUAV of Venice, Italy (2002), and MBA from Kansas University, USA (2004).

—
Design by Roberto Vito D'Amico 

Photo by Ali Ghorbani Moghaddam

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