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Documentary photography, publication

Catwalk Stories

Anyone who roams Swiss cities or travels through the countryside with their eyes open will encounter an incredible variety of cat stairs. They can be found on the facades of farmhouses, venerable stately homes, urban housing estates, and new buildings – from simple steps to structures eleven meters high.

Photographer Francisco Paco Carrascosa and art historian Matthias Oberli have searched throughout Switzerland for such everyday objects and captured them in pictures. They interviewed owners of cat ladders as well as their designers and inquired about the animals‘ habits in using the climbing aids. The result is a broad panopticon of impressions, which graphic designer Emanuel Tschumi has turned into a visual experience.

Photography, architecture, everyday life, and pop culture merge

The documentary photographs in public spaces reveal a lot about how we treat cats in Switzerland and provide surprising insights. “Cat Friends” are intermediate images with cat motifs from everyday life – such as knickknacks, warning signs, stuffed animals, sculptures, glasses, shoes, T-shirts, graffiti, magazines, teapots, ashtrays, etc. – and subtly bring a second photographic-narrative level to the work.