Limited companies are legal persons whose main purpose is to make a profit. The realization of this goal may, however, be to the detriment of the protection of the environment and the well-being of workers or citizens.
The company and its shareholders may, for example, sometimes tend not to respect certain legal and ethical principles, evading sanctions by means of legal wrangling and complex schemes. As citizens, we have little control over such phenomena.
In Can I?, I am interested in the relationship between an individual person and legal persons as economic powers, symbolically questioning the 20 companies in the SMI (Swiss Market Index), an ideal classification parameter for assessing economic power in Switzerland.
More specifically, I physically confront these companies by photographing the main entrance of their headquarters, placing myself in the public domain at its intersection with private property, on the very edge of their territory.
My photographic gesture is equivalent to a simple request for information, something that is both commonplace and lawful, with my mere presence inducing reactions that are sometimes surprising or disproportionate.
In the process of approaching these companies, photography is used as an effective physical tool, an explicit manifestation of my intentions, or even of my desires. For this reason, I worked with a large format technical camera, which allows me to approach the picture formally in an architectural way and which gives clear visibility.
Ultimately for me, the work is a way of questioning the balance of power and influence behind Helvetic tranquility, an apparent calm that is based on anonymity and discretion.