The cartographer and photographer Oliver Perrottet had been traveling the streets of Zürich for years as a taxi driver. When he didn't have a passenger, he took pictures. Now, for the first time, a photo book brought together a large selection of his pictures, which together present a kaleidoscopic portrait of Zurich.
The photographic journey shows familiar city views and sites, rushhour scenes, lonely night images, unspectacular and intimate snapshots, traveling day and night, through all kinds of weather, city moods and seasons. The perspective and mood are in part created by the fact that all the pictures are taken from the driver’s seat. Traces of this photographic technique include the car frame, windows or windshield wipers that remain unintentionally visible on the edge of the photo. The pictures are arranged according to the photographer’s trips, revealing Perrottet’s cartographic system: The uniformity is interrupted by moments of surprise; visual or contextual links occur incidentally within the presentation, but are not intentional; what at first appears incidental, solidifies into a storyline; various narratives run parallel, intersect or begin to intermingle.
With a text by Miklós Gimes, the city-renowned Zurich filmmaker, author and journalist.