What does Swiss security look like?

Previous Next

A modified assault rifle which can be used for sport and leisure shooting. Salvatore Vitale

A map of Switzerland at the border crossing in Chiasso is roughly divided into language regions. Salvatore Vitale

The national weather service MeteoSwiss produces a weather report for Zurich Airport every 30 minutes. Salvatore Vitale

A police diver on a rescue mission in Lake Zurich. And a sniffer dog searching for drugs during a police operation in the canton of Zurich. Salvatore Vitale

Data storage for weather information at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) in Lugano. And a robot from the federal technology institute ETH Zurich that will be used for search and rescue operations and will even be able to climb. Salvatore Vitale

Illuminated sign at the border crossing between Switzerland and Italy at Ponte Tresa. And protective mats in an ETH Zurich laboratory which is testing the interaction of small unmanned flight machines and robots. Salvatore Vitale

This wooden house on Nufenenpass-Strasse is a disguised military bunker. And the debris in the photo on the right was left by a joint civilian and military anti-terrorism exercise in Chiasso. Salvatore Vitale

Official ceremony at a meeting between the Swiss and Polish army chiefs in Bern. And on the right, an Eritrean asylum seeker's fingerprints are taken at Chiasso on the Swiss border. Salvatore Vitale

The region's highways are monitored at an operations centre of the Zurich cantonal police. Salvatore Vitale

A photographic reinterpretation of the instruction manual for the Swiss Army assault rifle. Salvatore Vitale

All objects in the security room at the Ponte Tresa border with Italy are secured so they cannot be used as weapons or to commit suicide. Salvatore Vitale

Border crossing at Brusino Arsizio and a military shooting target. Salvatore Vitale

• Picture 1
• Picture 2
• Picture 3
• Picture 4
• Picture 5
• Picture 6
• Picture 7
• Picture 8
• Picture 9
• Picture 10
• Picture 11
• Picture 12

Switzerland faces a wide range of real and perceived threats, including terrorism, cybercrime, climate change and migration. The precautions taken in one of the world's safest countries are correspondingly diverse.

Who is responsible for security? Who should be protected from what? What does this protection look like?

Photographer and publicist Salvatore Vitale explores these questions in “How to Secure a Country”, an exhibition of photographs looking at the institutions that are supposed to protect us.

Big business, many players

Security today is a billion-dollar business, involving not only the army, police and border guards but also weather forecasters, the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) and the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS), for example. 

Salvatore Vitale was almost 20 years old when he left Sicily to study in Lugano, in the southern Swiss canton of Ticino. He knew very little about Switzerland, and so was surprised to find the cellar of his first rented apartment in an air-raid shelter, as is common in Switzerland.

Ten years later Vitale felt at home in Switzerland. But when the right-wing populist initiative against mass immigration was approved at the ballot box in 2014, he was shocked. He began to research what it means to live in one of the safest countries in the world – and what fears are associated with it. 

Vital’s photographs do not so much provide answers as stimulate discussion. And the question posed by the exhibition organizers must ultimately be answered by each visitor individually: “How much freedom are we prepared to give up for our safety?

Salvatore Vitale’s visual research project runs until 26 May 2019 at the Fotostiftung SchweizExternal link in Winterthur, canton Zurich.