Following an invitation from Bellevue – Ort für Fotografie, as part of the outdoor group exhibition Bildfluss along the Rhine riverbank, September 2025.
The Rhine is entirely absent from Kostas Maros’s work. It exists only as an idea, a thought, lingering in these portraits of people dressed in swimsuits or swimming trunks, making their way through the urban landscape towards the riverbank – a place that has long since evolved into a multifunctional space: a swimming spot, a party hotspot and a concert venue. The transition into the residential and urban environment is sometimes abrupt. Here, too, a sense of ambivalence emerges, as the exposed physicality of the human body suddenly appears fragile in the face of the imposing architecture surrounding it.
Kostas Maros has deliberately chosen not to photograph his protagonists by the water. He dispenses with the typical attributes associated with Rhine swimmers – the water, the Wickelfisch (the iconic waterproof swimming bag), or the river scenery itself – and instead directs the viewer’s attention to the tension between the human body and the urban environment. In doing so, the focus shifts to the individual rather than the event or its setting.
Photographed wearing nothing but their swimwear and barefoot in Basel’s neighbourhoods, using a central perspective and maintaining direct eye contact with the camera, the subjects create an atmosphere of intimacy and honesty. The portraits are sensitive, direct and unvarnished, yet at the same time convey a sense of vulnerability in relation to the surrounding urban environment.
