Jan Bielinski

People – and beyond

Portraits and architectural landscape are the two major themes in the work of Swiss photographer Jan Bielinski. Wherever his photographs were captured, in Europe, America, China or other parts of the globe, they document not only a halted moment in time, but also the attempt to create a visual metaphor for the time we live in and understand how people’s collective and individual work creates the historical memory without which it is impossible to comprehend what is happening today and build our future.

Commentary by the artist

What makes the world so diverse? People. People in their everyday life, in their different cultural settings, with their own specific appearance, mode of behaviour and speech. People work, meet, observe, trade, buy, travel, eat, beg, fight, argue, walk, think, read, protest, etc.

All over the world we come across similar situations every day. Whether it’s a schoolchild in Myanmar, a woman taking photographs in Abu Dhabi, a demonstrator in London, men eating lunch in Beijing, a runner in New York or customers in a Hong Kong bar — all these situations seem interchangeable. The runner could be in Beijing, the demonstrator in Myanmar, the bar regulars in London and the people eating dinner in New York. Yet all of them are individuals, with their own particularities and differences.

Even without people, the world they created reflects their way of life: graffiti on a wall, the ascetic aesthetics of a Japanese meal or shop mannequins in a window.

Jan A. Bielinski (b. 1954) — Swiss photographer specialising in black and white street photography. He is fascinated by multi-faceted, everyday human life, yet simultaneously nuances of social criticism are frequently felt in his work. Although Bielinski’s primary occupation remains in the world of finance, he seeks expressive subjects for his photography whenever time allows. He lives near Zurich.