Soap dispensers are sensitive beings who are often unable to cope with the pressure that is put on them every day. Their own listlessness, lack of self-esteem and the permanent fear of not being refilled drive them into depressive moods. A state of inner emptiness that 
increases even more in times of a pandemic with an increased need for hygiene. Daily Soap tells of problematic working conditions in wet rooms, social isolation and friendships that are torn apart.
Swiss artist Pascale Osterwalder, who lives in Vienna, has been dealing with worn-out soap dispensers and their gruelling everyday life for several years. She does this with terse texts and melancholy pencil strokes.
The soap dispensers she portrays resemble us in their despair: as exhausted service providers, they tragicomically reflect our own inner lives and struggle with modern achievement-oriented socienty.
by Pascale Osterwalder
“[There are] occasionally settings reminiscent of the melancholy interiors of an Edward Hopper: In the shower and sink, next to the radiator and on the supermarket shelf, existential dramas of eroticism and desperation take place between soap dispenser, tube and a scouring sponge called Ray […]” – Klaus Nüchtern, Falter
“Screwed tight, drained, thrown away: The life of the soap dispensers gets to you. […] Obviously we are more like these small plastic structures than we want to admit.” – Karin Cerny, profile
“Pascale Osterwalder gives the soap dispensers a melancholy, funny and lovable auroa with her pencil strokes, one would like to organize public balcony clapping and a demonstration for better working conditions for soap dispensers immediately. And yet Daily Soap makes you happier than the next Netflix series, especially during the pandemic.” – Doris Akrap, taz
Luftschacht | hc | 136 pp | 130 x 200 mm | 2021 | all ages
All rights available