River Landscapes in the City

© Lucía de Mosteyrín

The film Swim City shows us how vital rivers are for the well-being of the entire urban pop­u­la­tion. Whether in the Danube baths in Vien­na, the botan­i­cal gar­dens of Tbil­isi, or the rivers in Basel and Zurich—everywhere peo­ple are jump­ing into the water on warm and even cold days. In oth­er cities, too, where rivers are only just being redis­cov­ered as open spaces, ini­tia­tives are being formed to raise aware­ness of the val­ue of water in the city. This, how­ev­er, goes far beyond the mere pop­u­lar­iz­ing of swim­ming. They are also move­ments that fight for pub­lic access to water against the back­ground of increas­ing pri­va­ti­za­tion of riv­er banks. They make it clear that rivers must be tak­en seri­ous­ly as impor­tant arter­ies in larg­er eco­log­i­cal structures.


Project

Swim City


Con­trib­u­tors

Jürg Egli, artist and Wilm­mak­er; Lucı́a de Mosteyrı́n, pho­tog­ra­ph­er; Bar­bara Buser, Andreas Ruby, and Yuma Shi­no­hara, co-cura­tion; Swiss Archi­tec­ture Muse­um Basel (S AM), commission


Year

2018, Film­ing


Loca­tions

Basel, Bern, Zurich, and Gene­va, Switzerland

Jürg Egli, Swim City, 3‑Kanal Instal­la­tion in video loop (18 min), 2019. © Jürg Egli
© Jürg Egli
© Lucía de Mosteyrín