In 2023 the county of Schwyz awarded me a small scholarship (Stipendium) for a three week trip to Vienna. I took this up in 2024. I’d been to the city on business before but now I had time to explore. I bought a public transport pass, which I could use for the trams or metro, and set about finding where to go and what to do. Initially the weather was beautiful but later there was some very stormy weather and consequently some serious flooding. The resulting photographs were used to make a small book and also for two exhibitions. I hope you like the small selection shown on this page.

Before leaving for Austria I bought a small booklet called “Vienna, The Swedish Square” (Wien, Schwedenplatz) which had been recommended to me. The book contains one-page stories or poems written by 106 authors describing their feelings and connections to the square and city. I read most of the stories and made notes as to how I could contact some of the authors and where I could go - this was quite a good strategy! One of the first things I discovered was the fact that the ‘square’ was not a square as such, but rather a whole area along the south western bank of the Danube between three of the bridges that crossed the river.

I contacted three people from my little book, two of them are shown above: the film maker Ruth Beckermann and the poet Stephan Eibel. Frau Beckermann was showing her film at the premier in Vienna and I went along. The film about a class of mainly immigrant children in the Favoriten district of Vienna. She accompanied the pupils and teacher for two years and showed the difficulties they faced and the slow adaptation of the children to their new environment and the chances that might exist.