{"id":27092,"date":"2000-10-30T12:46:13","date_gmt":"2000-10-30T11:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.textilmuseum.ch\/?p=27092"},"modified":"2025-12-08T11:06:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T10:06:43","slug":"schweizer-firma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.textilmuseum.ch\/en\/schweizer-firma\/","title":{"rendered":"Portrait of a Swiss company. A photo series by Barbara Davatz"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1972 the photographer Barbara Davatz placed the entire workforce of Firma H. Walser, a textile printing and thread manufacturing company in Z\u00fcrchersm\u00fchle (AR), in front of the camera. In this way, she portrayed 38 men and women, noting the name, birth date, nationality and trade or area of activity of each employee.<\/p>\n

The result is a multi-layered photographic work which in its calm, unsentimental objectivity<\/span> bears witness to social commitment, openness and a sense of attentiveness. While the series can be interpreted as a reaction to the so-called Schwarzenbach Initiative, the portraits represent something much more than a snapshot: they have turned into succinct evidence of a world of work that no longer exists, reflecting questions of identity, belonging and humanity that extend beyond their time.<\/p>\n

The \u2018Portrait of a Swiss Company\u2019 is being presented in parallel with the exhibition \u2018Mise en Sc\u00e8ne<\/a>\u2019, which shows another side of the textile industry: highly staged fashion photography.<\/p>\n

About the artist<\/h4>\n

Barbara Davatz has worked for forty years <\/span>as a professional photographer and created independent, artistic projects. Her work is marked by precise observation, conceptual clarity and special attention to relationships between people.<\/p>\n

Among her most well-known works can be counted \u2018Portrait of a Swiss Company\u2019, the photo series titled \u2018As Time Goes by\u2019, \u2018Beauty Lies Within\u2019, \u2018Doppelg\u00e4nger\u2019 and \u2018Gs\u00fc\u00fcn\u2019, in which she investigates over many years such themes as identity, transformation and belonging within society. In addition, she devotes herself to landscape photography, such as the series \u2018Heaven and Earth\u2019 and \u2018May Green\u2019, in which she blends observation of nature with subjective perception.<\/p>\n

The photograph of the former textile printing and thread manufacturing company H. Walser AG, Z\u00fcrchersm\u00fchle, which we are showing on this website, was taken by J\u00fcrg Z\u00fcrcher. It was taken for the exhibition project \u2018Iigf\u00e4dlet\u2019 (2017).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1972 the photographer Barbara Davatz placed the entire workforce of Firma H. Walser, a textile printing and thread manufacturing company in Z\u00fcrchersm\u00fchle (AR), in front of the camera. In this way, she portrayed 38 men and women, noting the name, birth date, nationality and trade or area of activity of each employee. The result is a multi-layered photographic work which in its calm, unsentimental objectivity bears witness to social commitment, openness and a sense of attentiveness. While the series can be interpreted as a reaction to the so-called Schwarzenbach Initiative, the portraits represent something much more than a snapshot: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.textilmuseum.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.textilmuseum.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.textilmuseum.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.textilmuseum.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.textilmuseum.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27092"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.textilmuseum.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27155,"href":"https:\/\/www.textilmuseum.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27092\/revisions\/27155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.textilmuseum.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.textilmuseum.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.textilmuseum.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}