Stefan Jung

She was a prisoner in the corset of social constraints and conventions – and at the same time she fought for a self-determined life as a woman – Lydia Welti-Escher, the daughter of politician and business leader Alfred Escher. Due to an extramarital liaison, the Swiss authorities had her committed to a psychiatric ward.

Katoey meets three people in rural Thailand who are clearly and confidently women even though their bodies are male. Integrated to an impressive degree into society, these women have successfully overcome the difference between their physical and mental genders.

Climate change disrupts lives and relationships – especially in the Persian Gulf, where temperatures can exceed 50°C and society is divided between the privileged few who can protect themselves, and migrants who have no choice but to endure the heat in order to make ends meet.

For Alyssia and Ilaria, every farewell is also a reunion. Just a while ago they were at the Italian Mediterranean coast, now here they are standing at a parking lot in front of an Esso gas station, waiting for their father’s car to appear around the corner. Affectionately, they bid their mother good-bye for now. The two sisters’ parents are separated. Just like Carleton, Sherazade and Thomas, the two girls have found their own way of dealing with the situation.

The texts, written in the solitude of his old flat, accompany the images that Josy Meier and Stefan Jung have captured from this life. The isolation of the fixer, the writing junkie, the gay former hustler becomes palpable, comprehensible. In conversations, Philip opens up, talks about his longings, his longing for love, talks about his relationship with heroin, with Genet and with hustling.