Because He Liked Cars

Because He Liked Cars is a project about women tuning their cars, a world largerly dominated by men. It sheds light on women reclaiming a space and a tool long perceived as masculine, offering a feminist take on identity and power.

I was first drawn to the project through questions of identity and specifically, how people outside urban centers relate to their cars. In many rural or suburban ares, the car becomes more than a vehicle : it's an extension of the self, a marker of freedom and belonging.

At first, I went there to photograph a man. But after a few hours, I realized that I would never be able to form the connection I was searching for. The space felt closed, structured by a masculine energy that left little room for exchange. Later, through the women who inhabited this world, I found a way in. Between us, there was an unspoken understanding, like an awareness born from our shared conditions, from existing as women in spaces that were never designed for us.

Over the course of a year, I travelled Switzerland to meet and photograph women who tune their cars. The resulting body of work takes the forme of a book, unfolding from a feminist perspective and exploring what it means to exist as a women within a culture both dominated and defined by men. My interest lies in how these women are seen, how their bodies are represented, and how these representations evole when the take ownership of spaces where genre roles are heightened and exposed.

This project is about women who already belong to the scene, who don't need permission to exist there. It seeks to make their presence visible and to grant them the same recognition often reserved for their male counterparts.

I spent hours talking to them, listening to their stories, their frustrations and their pride. Slowly, trust replaces curiosity. I chose to portray them no through a purely documentary lens but though an editorial one to allow them to appear powerful.

(Serie of 52 images, 86 pages Photobook, 17x23, SoftCover)