Platzspitz
1991
The Platzspitz is a peninsula in the Limmat River near Zurich’s main train station. Once a park next to the Swiss National Museum, it became a hub for heroin trade and an “open drug scene” in the early 1990s. Despite covering only a few hundred square meters, it served as a striking intersection between life and death, misery and happiness, poverty and wealth, indifference and empathy until it was cleared by police. The Platzspitz became a park that, for months, was the “home” of hundreds of drug addicts and consequently became a topic for domestic and international media—a symbol of the “other Switzerland.”Over two years, I carried out several artistic actions in and around the former “drug ghetto.” After authorities closed the Platzspitz, the addicts initially lost their “home.” In response, I set up so-called “shooting rooms” in my exhibitions. Visitors to the Kunsthalle Wil and the Kunsthaus Oerlikon were confronted with typical drug paraphernalia: syringes, spoons, water, ascorbic acid, and candles for liquefying drugs.
I regularly visited the Platzspitz park and took photographs. I asked the addicts if I could photograph their hands. I made small photographs with jagged edges, reminiscent of those in old photo albums, and nailed these images of hands to trees in the Platzspitz. This was a protest against the authorities’ ban on providing addicts with clean syringes, even amidst the AIDS epidemic. Eventually, the Zurich government relented and distributed syringes to addicts. They received as many syringes as they brought back for disposal, aiming to curb the spread of the AIDS epidemic. Used syringes became sought-after items, and many addicts searched for them in bushes and trash bins.
I joined them and began collecting syringes, needles, and blood-stained swabs. I arranged them in baroque, ornamental patterns and displayed them in glass cases.
The Platzspitz is a peninsula in the Limmat River near Zurich’s main train station. Once a park next to the Swiss National Museum, it became a hub for heroin trade and an “open drug scene” in the early 1990s. Despite covering only a few hundred square meters, it served as a striking intersection between life and death, misery and happiness, poverty and wealth, indifference and empathy until it was cleared by police. The Platzspitz became a park that, for months, was the “home” of hundreds of drug addicts and consequently became a topic for domestic and international media—a symbol of the “other Switzerland.”Over two years, I carried out several artistic actions in and around the former “drug ghetto.” After authorities closed the Platzspitz, the addicts initially lost their “home.” In response, I set up so-called “shooting rooms” in my exhibitions. Visitors to the Kunsthalle Wil and the Kunsthaus Oerlikon were confronted with typical drug paraphernalia: syringes, spoons, water, ascorbic acid, and candles for liquefying drugs.
I regularly visited the Platzspitz park and took photographs. I asked the addicts if I could photograph their hands. I made small photographs with jagged edges, reminiscent of those in old photo albums, and nailed these images of hands to trees in the Platzspitz. This was a protest against the authorities’ ban on providing addicts with clean syringes, even amidst the AIDS epidemic. Eventually, the Zurich government relented and distributed syringes to addicts. They received as many syringes as they brought back for disposal, aiming to curb the spread of the AIDS epidemic. Used syringes became sought-after items, and many addicts searched for them in bushes and trash bins.
I joined them and began collecting syringes, needles, and blood-stained swabs. I arranged them in baroque, ornamental patterns and displayed them in glass cases.
