Wall as Horizon

Laurence Rasti photographs to change lives. Her survey of the La Promenade detention facility in La Chaux-de-Fonds serves as a case study for more general questions about the challenges of confinement. It was important to her that those detained be able to play an active part in recording their experiences. Their handling of pinhole boxes transforms the ambient light into photographic traces that are as surprising as they are moving.The harshness of concrete as a barrier to the tradition of prison graffiti challenged the artist to invent an equivalent means of expression, capable of relaying outside the walls the striking testimonies gathered within them. In harnessing the genre of portraiture, to which everyone could lend themselves freely, the exchange of glances, accepted and refused in equal measure, solicits empathy.A contribution by Luca Gnaedinger and an interview with Federica Martini frame this sensitive, conceptually rigorous and powerful artistic work.