My rank is the highest known in Switzerland. I'm a free citizen.
George Bernard Shaw

Hermann Hesse, Paul Klee, Francis Ford Coppola, René Berger, Gustav Jung, Paul Klee, Hugo Ball, Rudolf Steiner, Otto Gross, Max Weber, Erich Maria Remarque, Edgar Morin, Henri Matisse, Jean Arp, Isadora Duncan, Rudolf Steiner, Max Picard, Patricia Highsmith, Karl Marx, Lenin, Max Weber, Ludwig von Mises, Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius, Moholy-Nagy, Mircea Eliade, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Martin Buber, James Joyce, El Lissitsky and many, many others - what did they have in common? They all had an intense relationship with Switzerland.
In 1987, the Swiss philosopher and professor René Berger - who would become a dear friend and partner in various projects over a lifetime - invited me to become one of the coordinators of the first video art and electronic art festivals in the world - the Locarno Video Art Festival.
I still didn't know Ticino - until then, thanks to my father, my Swiss soul was entirely made up of the German- and French-speaking cantons.
As soon as I arrived in Locarno that year, 1987, I met Rinaldo Bianda - who had been, with Berger, the creator of the festival. Then there was his son, Lorenzo, a great photographer who would also become a dear friend forever.
The festivals also included an international meeting, a kind of planetary observatory of science, philosophy and art. Thus, once a year, personalities such as Edgar Morin, Francis Ford Copolla, Daniel Charles, Pierre Restany, Nam June Paik, Basarab Nicolescu, Pierre Levy, Joseph Brenner or Bill Viola, among many others, gathered in Locarno.
In 1988, I started a long photographic essay on Switzerland.
Many things happened with my soul in Switzerland and I definitively moved to Locarno, always traveling the world.
Switzerland is the only truly democratic country in the world. For more than two centuries we have had a system of direct democracy. It's also the country with the highest number of museums in relation to the population on the planet... and not only. It's a country of peace, without poverty, where the financial system (contrary to what many people say) represents only around 6% of the economy - and has around 25% of its population made up of immigrants. Its secret is liberty and the respect to Law, to the State of Law.
Faced with a planet that is becoming less and less democratic, where around 60% of the world's population is already censored on the Internet (Surfshark.com), where tyrannical regimes are announcing that they are going to dominate and control the entire planet in the name of a world government, and very little about this is said by journalists in practically every country (until journalism becomes extinct), I decided to publish this small book that also includes a fragment of that photo essay.
In many countries, even in Europe, I often hear people say absurd things about Switzerland.
Switzerland is not a model for other countries, but an object for interesting reflection.
This is a testimony of someone living in the country over many years.
The book Switzerland - The Dream of Reason is a kind of manifesto for liberty, love, peace, the Rule of Law, democracy, art, culture, science, love for Nature and respect for all - values created and defended by what we might call Western Civilization.

Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta, Locarno 2024

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emanuel pimenta


the photographic essay
the book (please go to Amazon)
the text of the book (academia.edu)
list of places in the book
list of names in the book


the book is made in three editions - English, Italian and Portuguese