Christa Ziegler is a traveller and city walker, her interest lies in urban agglomerations. The artist photographs megacities in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, South and Central America. The city is an engine of civilisation and modernity, but also a Moloch and a place of lost dreams and destroyed hopes. The urbanisation of the world is progressing steadily, with people crowding together in a confined space in search of individual happiness and prosperity. Christa Ziegler’s sensitive photography from a distanced perspective portrays the city as an organism and bustle of architecture, streets, people and landscape.
Uraniawiese lies mostly unnoticed between Limmatquai and Sihl, in front of the Urania police station, close to the historic Lindenhof and not far from the luxurious Bahnhofstrasse. Christa Ziegler’s photographs will complement this landscape around Uraniastrasse for a short time and bring it back to the attention of city dwellers. The image on the large billboard corresponds with the peculiar city administration building in the background.
Zurich likes to see itself as a cosmopolitan city. In direct confrontation with the photography of a pulsating metropolis, however, Zurich appears tranquil; the contrast is obvious. In this context, Christa Ziegler’s photographs function like a window to the world. The installation contains an invitation to look beyond the end of one’s nose, to open oneself to the world and to see oneself as part of a larger whole, as an inhabitant of a globalised world that has moved closer together.
Idea & concept Christa Ziegler and Esther Eppstein; photography Christa Ziegler; project management: Monika Schori; realisation of the billboard and poster application: Alive, Media AG, Zurich; production: message salon, in collaboration with KiöR, working group for art in public spaces in the city of Zurich, Civil Engineering Office of the City of Zurich.