Ueli Meier – In einer anderen Schweiz

Funny and tragic, astonishing and moving: Photographer and filmmaker Ueli Meier portrayed people in Switzerland during the 1980s and 1990s, capturing their passions and their struggles with life. The images depict a Switzerland of contrasts and coexistences. The social welfare recipient with no job prospects and the millionaire heiress at the beginning of her life; far-flung military pilots and well-traveled retired missionaries; car racing and poodle racing; a wrestling and alpine festival and the redevelopment of Zurich's industrial district; Lucerne's city originals and the tinkerer with his historic locomotive; the St. Gallen Open Air and the Zug breeding bull market. This book presents Ueli Meier's color and black-and-white reports, accompanied by text collages that the photographer compiled from contemporary historical documents as well as newspaper and magazine articles. It sheds light on a charmingly peculiar, privileged and tradition-conscious, yet also profit-maximizing and tough Switzerland. Introduced by a foreword from popular culture researcher Alfred Messerli, it reveals the changes and stagnations in our country at the end of the 20th century.