In Conversation: Olga Bushkova

Olga Bushkova is a Google Trusted Photographer who started her professional life thinking she was a mathematician and programmer. She talks to Libby O’Loghlin about how photography took over, and why obsessions should come before our tools.

Shamelessly serendipitous

Iida Ruishalme

We went for a stroll with Albert. It was such a romantic night by the lake—just me and Albert hand in hand, gazing at the water lilies trembling on the moon bridge.

Confused yet?

I have bewildered many readers before learning, among other things, that in English, ‘we go with person x’ never implies a headcount of two, and that a moon bridge isn’t an English concept at all.

Notes from the Unexpected: Veit Stauffer and a record store with roots

Text and images by DB Miller

It makes for the perfect Zurich triangle: REC REC, the Volkshaus and an outpost of Hooters. Or, a bit wider out: REC REC, the Swiss stock exchange and King’s Kurry. All are places where dreams can come true. And all are institutions in their own right.

But not all get a shout-out from the mayor and visits from touring rockers. REC REC owner Veit Stauffer, however, has little time for fawning. “I take it cool,” he says about the fame of his CD and record store. “Of course, I’m a little bit proud that the shop is the most reviewed in Switzerland. But I still need my daily cash and sometimes I worry.” From his folding chair next to one of the store’s listening stations, he assures me this happens only four to six times a year.

The literature of exploitation

by Johanna Sargeant

Why is it that we love reading about exploitation? Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl and Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha sit stoically on my bookshelf next to Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and Richard Overy’s The Dictators. For most of us, delving into these worlds of both the victim and the perpetrator is like reading any good fiction: It is escapism, it is voyeuristic, it gives us avenues through which to explore ourselves. Few of us would choose to read stories of the great battle to find a good soy latte in Switzerland or the joy of a toddler’s bedtime antics, when instead we could read about an exploited opium-addicted prostitute in the newly colonised New Zealand (the 2013 Booker Prize winner, Catton’s The Luminaries) or

Gallery: Exploitation

Olga Bushkova is a Google Trusted Photographer who started her professional life thinking she was a mathematician and programmer.

You can read our full interview with Olga here.

In Conversation: Chantal Panozzo

Chantal Panozzo is a professional writer and co-founder of the Zurich Writers Workshop. She talks to Jill about her new publication, Swiss Life: 30 Things I Wish I’d Known.

The theme of this issue of The Woolf is Exploitation. We’re looking at the positive connotations of making the most of it. You seem the ideal interviewee. Do you feel you’ve made the most of the expatriate experience?

Making Tracks

Goings-on in the city of Zürich and beyond.

Image: Olga Bushkova