End of page

Back to overview

Catherine Leutenegger

Awarded

Catherine Leutenegger

Photo research 'The Kodak City'

Photography

Jury report

Click-Clack Kodak!
George East­man (1854-1932) made the town of Rochester rich with the fast 'click', the leg­endary 'Kodak mo­ment'. How­ever, when it came to the tran­si­tion to the dig­i­tal world, Kodak didn't press the shut­ter fast enough. The de­cline of the ana­logue film busi­ness, Kodak's for­mer core com­pe­tence, be­came a threat to the com­pany and the brand. Now catch­ing up has be­come a strug­gle for sur­vival, and life is slowly drain­ing out of the head of­fice in Rochester (U.S. state of New York). Lay­ing off about 30,000 em­ploy­ees and a de­fi­ant pan to dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy is meant to save what can still be saved. The im­pact of this change on the 'yel­low photo giant' shouldn't be over­looked. Cather­ine Leuteneg­ger's 'Kodak City' photo re­search pro­ject leads us to this place of long tra­di­tion, which is about to dis­ap­pear. With a re­mark­able mas­tery of the tech­nique and fram­ing choices she dis­plays what has be­come of the for­mer cen­tre of the pho­tog­ra­phy world. Her look at the bland face of the town and at dis­il­lu­sioned in­di­vid­u­als is mer­ci­less. The empti­ness in these ex­te­rior views is tan­gi­ble. In­side Kodak's pro­duc­tion fa­cil­i­ties, how­ever, high-glossed and in the style of 1970s com­mer­cial pho­tog­ra­phy, every­thing seems un­changed, seems to have re­mained the same over the years: the car­pets on the floor, the mar­ble, the gold leaf. The 'Kodak City' photo col­lec­tion is com­ple­mented by a text con­sist­ing of a re­portage with es­says and in­ter­views, and leaves us with a night­mar­ish in­tense im­pres­sion of the dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion. Here the young pho­tog­ra­pher is seam­lessly con­tin­u­ing the tra­di­tion of a per­spec­tive out­side the field of view; this is the tra­di­tion she started to fol­low with her dis­tin­guished diploma work 'Hors Champs' in 2006: pho­tog­ra­phy on pho­tog­ra­phy over the course of time.
Ed­uard Hart­mann

Biography

Catherine Leutenegger
Born in
1983
Education 
Photographer

Web

www.cleutenegger.com

also in

2006

2017

Back to overview

Top of page