Unfamiliar Familiarities

Switzerland's image has been significantly shaped by photographs dedicated to tourism. Through spectacular mountain panoramas, snapshots of rural idylls, or portraits of local people, the country could be successfully marketed, and these photographs also made an important contribution toward national identity. Another consequence, however, was that the respective pictorial repertoire became inflated and stereotyped. For this publication and for an exhibition of the same name opening in 2017, five internationally renowned photographers were invited to scrutinize Switzerland in their capacity as independent, subjective, and sensitive observers – unrestricted by any advertising commission. What Alinka Echeverria (Mexiko/UK), Shane Lavalette (USA), Eva Leitolf (Germany), Simon Roberts (UK), and Zhang Xiao (China) discovered on their travels around the country or along its borders is both inspiring and revealing. Their exciting, poetic, or mysterious-enigmatic images invite viewers to see the familiar with the eyes of an outsider.