ESCARGORAMA - Expo photo en plein air

About thirty images of anthropomorphized gastropods will take over the medieval town of Estavayer-le-Lac from October 3 to November 17, 2026.

Aleia Murawski and Sam Copeland, an American duo living and working in Illinois, create dioramas in which they feature and immortalize their pet snails. Somewhere between miniatures and photography, these images immerse us in a suburban Midwest where the ordinary rubs shoulders with the strange, set against the backdrop of 1980s cinematic aesthetics—somewhere between David Lynch’s *Twin Peaks*, the Coen brothers’ *Raising Arizona*, and *E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial*.

In the imaginary town of Slimetown, snails go to the video store, investigate a flying saucer crash, visit the carnival, or lounge in a hot tub. Something then strikes us: the unusual snails created by Aleia Murawski and Sam Copeland share a surprising familiarity with the curious amphibians at the Estavayer-le-Lac Museum and its frogs.

“It takes several weeks to build the set, make and collect the props, and then set up the lights. Everything fits into a shoebox. Then the snails take the stage: the shot lasts about thirty seconds. Sometimes we hide a few pieces of cucumber to attract them; naturally curious, they immediately set out to explore their new environment,” the artists explain.

The 36 photographs on display offer a glimpse into this unique world, which began in 2015. Some were created specifically for this fifth edition of the Estavayer outdoor photography exhibition; the majority are taken from the two books *Snail World I* and *Snail World II*, published in 2020 and 2024 by Broccoli. The duo’s work has been featured by The New York Times, the BBC, The Guardian, and Smithsonian Magazine, as well as by specialized media outlets such as Colossal and It’s Nice That.

OPENING RECEPTIONAGE with the artists in attendance — SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2026, at 11:30 a.m. — at the Rempart Bar (Rue du Château 12, 1470 Estavayer-le-Lac)

Photo locations:

Château de Chenaux (garden)

Rue du Musée 13–15

Grand-Rue 5

Grand-Rue 14

Grand-Rue 19

Grand-Rue 23 (window of the former pharmacy)

Rue de l’Hôtel de Ville 9–11 (Kiosk and Grenette plaza)

Place du Midi

Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.