Daughter of the painter AMI (Anne-Marie Imhoof) and of a passionate philhellene (Rodolphe Imhoof), Barbara Polla grew up in Geneva and spent a year in Greece in her early days. This year spent abroad represented her first contact with a dictatorship and prison. This episode of her teenage life has been determining for much of her curriculum, for her desire to change the world for the better, her medical studies (1970-1980), her work as an elected politician (1991-2003) in a party that aimed to defend freedom and humanism, and henceforth her writing and her work as a artistic curator on the theme “Art & Prison”. Polla received a Medical Degree from the University of Geneva, worked and taught at University Hospital in Geneva, was a fellow at Harvard University and has an HDR from University Paris Descartes. She was an elected politician in Switzerland for 12 years, and a Member of Parliament of Switzerland until 2003. Since 1991, in her gallery and various museums internationally, she has been exhibiting many artists including Greek artists, Andreas Angelidakis, Miltos Manetas, Maro Michalakakos, Pavlos Nikolakopoulos, among others. She is also a prolific writer, writing papers and books on art, on gender, on social issues, as well as poetry and fiction. She has four daughters. 

Barbara created and is the President of the Swiss Association SHARING PERAMA.