Muynak, Uzbekistan, 1999

Carbon pigment print, 2021

signed

From the 1960s onwards, Pia Zanetti travelled on behalf of various publications, such as Die Woche, Das Magazin, Du or NZZ, first throughout Europe and later worldwide. This dedicated photojournalist tenaciously asserted herself in a domain that had long been reserved for men. 

 

This picture of a ship on the Aral Sea is part of her reportage on the precarious existence of the people losing their livelihood as the sea was drying up. However, Zanetti’s shot also holds its own as a single image outside the series. The photograph combines positive and negative, heaviness and lightness, motion and standstill: In its ambivalence, it also symbolises our present-day world.