The ongoing project A Wall as Horizon addresses the significant over-representation of vulnerable individuals in the Swiss carceral system. Having gained a rare access to the jail La Promenade in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, Laurence Rasti is working in collaborative and participatory ways with the detainees. She photographs them and equips them with pinhole cameras so that they can create their own representations of their daily life. With this project, she aims to empower them as authors and experts on their own situation. Furthermore, she seeks to foster critical reflections on the Swiss prison system and its possible shortcomings. Through exchanges with detainees, scholars and theorists, she intends to critically examine the reasons behind the over-representation of disadvantaged individuals, often with a migratory background, in Swiss jails, which can appear to be a wilful punishment of the poor.
