K12. Schwamendingen, ein Randbezirk von Zürich

Schwamendingen is Neukölln. Schwamendingen is the suburb. Schwamendingen is Genova Pra’. Schwamendingen is a code. A flavor that the artist Ruth Erdt aptly captures. Her 643 photographs in this book vividly illustrate this: Yes, Schwamendingen is a peripheral district, a city quarter on the outskirts, like many similar places in other cities around the world. But there is so much more: Schwamendingen is a phenomenon, a defiance, a pride, a love. Everyone mocks this district, but once you arrive, almost no one wants to leave. Incorporated into the city of Zurich in 1934, Schwamendingen first developed into a garden city that connected the center with the new industrial settlement on the periphery, and then gradually became perhaps the most contemporary part of the Zurich metropolitan area: With almost 50 percent foreign population and comparatively low crime rates, Schwamendingen is an astonishingly relaxed, appreciated suburb. The highway corridor that has divided the district for 40 years is currently being covered – encased, as the large project is called – freeing the neighborhood from the noise of 120,000 cars daily. The accompanying architectural densification has already begun; hopefully, gentrification will wait a little longer. The photographer Ruth Erdt presents here a wild, bouncing, hot-cold dance of images through Schwamendingen, the proud peripheral district K12.

Exhibition at Kunsthalle Zurich
September 28, 2024, to January 19, 2025.