A neutral eye on the US elections

“I think being Swiss is very helpful in such situations. A door opener. This has little to do with national identity, but a lot to do with an image that is still attested to outside Switzerland. It’s a sign of independence and neutrality. As a Swiss I am an uninvolved observer, I represent nothing, no interests – just small Switzerland.”

“The election campaign for the office of the US president has already been a springboard for the careers of many photojournalists. There are many photographers who concentrate on the theatrical, who capture the delusions, the ecstasy, and also the irrational – and in so doing, maybe also unmask or comment on this. I’m cautious about this, myself. I think the topic is a serious one, after all. The decisions made in such an election are real in spite of all the staging.”

"To arrive in rural America is a major experience involving a lot of clichés, of course. But actually, I don’t have this fascination with the US like other people do. I see myself as more or less resistant to these images. What interests me and keeps me here are the people and the opportunity to get to know them via my work.”

“There is also this critical-of-America outlook towards the US. Especially in connection with the election campaign, a lot of things seem grotesque, incomprehensible and stupid to us. I recently well back to Switzerland for the first time in a year, and when confronted with these sweeping judgements, I often tried to say: ‘Yes, but …I visited fewer than ten of the 50 states last year: New York, Texas, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia. This small percentage is also a part of my life story; it’s the little bit that I experienced myself this year.’”

“My approach is of a more poetic nature and is not intended to be objective. There’s also a lot of me in my pictures. They often work through symbols; I want to lead the viewer in one direction, but still let the pictures speak for themselves.”

 “A group of students in the Bronx. For them, this is their first election campaign. They’re my contemporaries, my people, probably very close to my own personal political attitude. Nevertheless, there’s a distance between us. I’m not vulnerable to ideologies, whether it’s Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. Of course, I feel much closer to the one, but I have trouble with those who follow blindly.”