Arte Albigna is a show curated by Luciano Fasciati, CĂ©line Gaillard and Claudia Klammer in the alpin area surrounding the Capanna da l'Albigna, 02.07-30.09.2017
This is the dam built by the city of Zurich in the Val Bregaglia, at the border to Italy, in 1959. The hydroelectric dam was built in order to secure electricity for the swiss metropole. At the same time it secured work in a valley soon to be deserted at that time. It also secured physically the valley from the wild floods coming from the river on which the dam got built.
I thought it would interesting to confront the visitors, mostly people enjoying first a hike in the wild alps, with the complex relation between the city, the urban context, and the nature, the outdoor. I decided to write a story which the visitors can read on the way back from the tour. written on the handrail, it works like a running subtitle to the landscape composed by the artificial lake and the mountains.
The story is about the encounter of two mayors in the Hague and how their friendship led them to make a bike trip from the city center to the edge of the city. And how one of them becomes electricity.
In the Capanna that welcomes the hikers and climbers, I provide the game Hotel Helvetia along the game collection available to the guests. We created it with Christian Kosmas Mayer in 2006 for a show at the Shedhalle.
Copyright Photo: Ralf Feiner