Michele Laird

A free outdoor and indoor arts biennale that takes over an entire city with 75 site-specific projects, many of them interactive: photographs become experiences. For its fifth biennale edition, Festival Images chooses the theme of ‘Immersion’ that invites participation: walk on water (Leuvrey), ‘reveal’ photos with buckets of water (Gil), fish them out of the lake (Delille), dare 3D (Mocafico), tread on ocean floors (Faithfull), slip into a holiday landscape (Parr), listen to digital rain (Collishaw), guess what’s missing (Schirner), sleep in an expo (Soth), ease around a fence (Lutz), chuckle with Winter. But immersion is also meant metaphorically, and with artists from 15 different countries, the festival reveals the artistic and cultural power of photography, just when we thought that it had been swallowed up by selfies and the web.

There's some heavy hitters exhibiting in Switzerland this year. From the confronting work of Pipilotti Rist to the classic impressionist paintings of Paul Signac, these are the Switzerland's unimissable art shows.

Entering into its 46th year, Art Basel remains the dean of all art fairs dedicated to modern and contemporary art and the annual meeting place for anyone in the art world who wants to be seen. But like any art fair, it is coming up against the competition of other art fairs that are popping up all over the world, in China, in Turkey and India, to name only a few countries that are producing exciting art. As a result, Art Basel has also gone global with editions in Miami and Hong Kong. It is now trying to stay ahead of its own game by being much more than a market place where 200 of the world's leading galleries put their best art up for sale to attract the high net worth individuals who call themselves collectors, but who could also be seen as investors. But don’t expect to see Roman and Dasha Abramovich, the Rubbels or Sheikha Mayassa Al-Thani, because they have probably swept through Art Basel even before it is opened to the public. The string of parties starts on the Monday before the official opening day on Wednesday. In a clever move for its 2015 edition, Art Basel is blurring the fine line between the market place and institutions that are funded to expose art. It has invited the most prestigious galleries to bring a selection of masterpieces from the beginning of Modern art to the 1970s. Walking the aisles will be like visiting a museum and the fair has promised a new floor plan to make the visit less fraught than in most market venues. By the way, the art is actually

Home to more than 1,000 museums, Switzerland has the highest concentration per capita in the world. So soak up some culture and discover some of the best exhibitions in Switzerland.

Art Basel has been around for 45 years and continues to attract visitors from all over the world, but a stringent selection process means that only leading galleries get to show there. As a result, four satellite fairs have emerged over the years to allow lesser-known galleries to get a crack at the whip. Dotted around the city, with shuttle buses connecting the venues, they destroy the myth that art is only for the rich cognoscenti. Most of them open ahead of the official dates of Art Basel (18-21 Jun) and stay open for the entire week. Admission is between CHF17 and CHF22. 

Every two years, the lakeside city of Vevey throws a one-of-its-kind event. Festival Images Vevey is an open-sky visual art biennale that makes photography into an event. The entire city is decked out with arresting displays: buildings covered with monumental swaths of canvas printed with iconic photographs by some of the greatest living photographers sway in the wind, while unexpected venues like church naves, abandoned metal workshops or lakeside beaches become the backdrops for ingenious new projects. For three weeks, Vevey becomes alive with images, living up to its genius urban branding of "Vevey, City of Images" that was devised in the 1990s to arrest its economic decline and decay. Coupled with the Grand Prix de la Photo on alternate, odd, years, the festival showcases the more audacious frontiers in photo from around the world precisely at a time when photography is diluted by immediacy and ubiquity. The festival's credo, says director Stefano Stoll, is to surprise. Since 2008, attendance has increased exponentially, with 10'000 visitors in 2014.

Nestled in pasturelands where one of the most famous cheeses in the world was born and is still fabricated today, the Musée Gruérien hosts exhibitions that provoke and give insight.