Peter Brutschin was born in1951, and and grew up in an ultra Catholic Black Forest village not far away from Basel. Basel: the city of the ‘first european revolution’, Holbein the younger, Nietzsche, Meret, Oppenheim, Jean Tinguely, The city where LSD was invented by pure chance. Peter used to celebrate the ‘Catholic’ carnival; the moment he heard about the Basel carnival he celebrated it one week later, too (supported by his ultra protestant mother who called the school director, that Peter was sick – year after year. So year after year he started fasnacht with the morgestraich at 4 am and completed it 3 days later with the gugge. marching 3 days through the city, up and down the roads and the small streets, crossing the Rhine river with his clique (all Catholic immigrants from his village, all “sick”), playing on his small drum, kept lively by roux soup and his enthusiasm and, well, Mr. Hoffman’s invention sometimes too.
Since 1970 he has been living in Berlin. a carnival free zone, suffering every February /March.
For almost 20 years he has been managing a sheltered workshop for so called mentally handicapped people.
He specializes in education for acting, dancing, painting, and graphics. His kind of ‘clientele’ quite often have these  Basel carnival qualities: a dark humor, a lack of respect for
‘authority’, scurrility and the feeling for rhythm.

If you want to learn about why the Basel carnival is called the only protestant carnival in the world or learn about the morgestraich or the cortège or the cliques or … have a look here:

Find out more about Peter’s work here

Visit Peter’s website for more photos!