The One-man Water Cannon Test. Photography by Eric Bachmann
This slim but weighty photo book with a hardcover and protective jacket presents a series of unpublished images from May 1969, offering original and enlightening access to the archive material. Unaccompanied by any text, more than 60 black-and-white images are printed full bleed, always on a right-hand page. They show a smartly dressed journalist from the magazine Sie und Er, complete with briefcase and umbrella, placing himself in the line of fire during a test of the Zurich city police force’s new water cannon until he is utterly drenched. Although the pictures were taken for journalistic purposes and not for publication as a series, presented in this way they are reminiscent of the concept and performance art of their day. They also function as a visual commemoration, providing a surprising insight into political unrest in Zurich via a different kind of demonstrator. All the design decisions – from the size and format to the thick paper and wide font – are successful. The unfamiliar non-slip paper of the dust jacket echoes the graininess of the historical photographs.
