Christian
Neuenschwander

Daniel Ruiz : Hello Christian, thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions. First, could you maybe tell us more about you and your main focus, research, or interest ?

Christian Neuenschwander : Yes, sure. I’m actually a graphic designer and I have been working in branding, illustration, and graphic design for the past 20 years. I have lived in New York for three years and worked in branding there as well. I went into graphic design was actually because I was good in drawing. I actually wanted to become an interior designer or a product designer, but at that time I didn’t really have the opportunity to do so. Along the way I kind of picked upon photography, it just came to me. I started taking snapshots, always having a camera with me and then I got more and more into it, and after a while people started to recognize me also as a photographer.But two years ago, I went back to Arts. My dilemma is that I actually like doing everything, you know, everything which is creative. I come from an architect family, so I’m very drawn to everything around design, creativity, etc.I also got into architecture photography because I understand architecture very well. So, it kind of felt very natural just to becauseI knew how to take read a building, I knew what are the important perspectives of a building, and what are those details or special details from the architect. That’s something I’m still doing. But I’m displaying that. So that’s why you don’t see any architecture in my work.

DR: For your photographs work, is the camera you use for shooting when you are travelling the same as the one you use when you shoot architecture?

CN : For architecture, I use a digital one. I have a Nikon D850 with a wide angle and I shoot with different cameras, and I also have a anSLR camera for snapshots. But I work the most in analogue. It has a special grain and a special light. It kind of makes a slight abstraction of whatever you shoot, because when you shoot digitally, it is one on one with the reality. I don’t like that aesthetic very much because it’s too near, too close to the reality.

DR: Your photographic work displays a lot of different kind of subjects, from portraits to natural objects. How would you describe yourself in your work?

CN : In photography, I just like to capture what amazes me. I did a lot of portraits, band portraits, and but they were mostly assignments.
When I travel somewhere and I bring my camera, I like to do portraits because, obviously people fascinate me. I love to see how human make their environment, it calls my attention. You know, when I go somewhere, I have a lot of photographies, which I would not shoot in my own city. Because everything is very familiar in my city. I know all the details and I understand it. But when I go somewhere else, I see a lot of things which are unfamiliar and that I don’t necessarily understand.

DR: About Flumserberg, and your series “Paradiesli”, how would you describe this place? It is not a traditional trailer park, isn’t it?

CN : Well, I know this place as a sky resort first, from snowboarding mostly. One summer, I was just hiking around the place a little bit, and coming around the hill I discovered these trailers, like scattered allover the place. And just at that moment, without planning it, I took those shots.And I was kind of amazed because those trailers seem to be settled there. They have their own garden, their own space. Some seem to be inhabited all year long, they have electric installations and everything and others seem to be used just for the summer, live a holiday house.

DR : Why, in your opinion, would people live in those kind ofmutated spaces?

CN : Well, I think that as long as you don’t build concretefoundations for a house, you can basically live pretty much anywherewithout having too much financial expenses. I think many peoplewould love to have a place in the mountains where they can go all yearround but not many can afford it. In this campground, people can setup their trailer but after a while, I think it’s human nature to want tocustomize the place, to make it ones own, to make it cosy. And thisappropriation is at the center of these mutations.

DR : Well yes, somehow it seems that everyone needs to have a space that feels like home some way or another, right?

CN : Absolutely. Like I said, people would like to have a place in nature, in the mountains or on an island. And make it a place where they don’t go just once a year, but a place that they can call home.