Art Safiental Biennale raises voices from the future

The "Moving Landscape" by the artist couple Quarto. An aluminium cube slowly moves across an alpine meadow. Dominik Landwehr

In a pristine Alpine valley in eastern Switzerland, an art biennale has taken root. Visitors at the fifth Art Safiental Biennale in the Safien valley, which runs until October 20, are being confronted with the question, “What if...?”.

Art Safiental 2024 is not a fair-weather exhibition. This is not only because there have there been many storms in Switzerland this summer, but because the motto of this year’s open-air programme is, “What if? Voices from the future”.

The bienniale attracts between 5,000 and 10,000 visitors each year. Previous editions have also attracted worldwide media coverage.

What do valley residents think of the art?

But what do the inhabitants of the valley think of these artistic endeavours? There were only a few locals at the opening at the beginning of July.

“After it had rained for weeks, the first warm days had to be used for the hay harvest,” Elisabeth Bardill explains. Bardill is 83 years old and has lived in the village of Tenna with her husband since 1963.

“Many people in the valley are a bit shy about making an appearance. This also has to do with the fact that they speak little or no English. This type of art is new to them. They prefer to go to the traditional costume festival in Zurich or to the Ländler Sunday folk music concerts at the inn in Safien,” she says.

However, there is a lot of contact between artists and locals in the background. For example, women from the valley donated old textiles, which the Swiss-Mexican artist Paloma Ayala used to make so-called Spiis-Säckli, or food bags.

Paloma Ayala has built a community oven in Tenna using coloured bricks. Dominik Landwehr

In Safiental, present-day crises rub shoulders with crises of the past. The Safien valley was shaped by a geological catastrophe 10,000 years ago, when the Flims landslide buried the Rhine Valley, making access to the valley impossible.

Until the end of the 19th century, the valley was only accessible via the steep Alpine passes in the higher elevations. The German-speaking Walser people came over these passes in the Middle Ages and imparted their Walser dialect and the typically scattered settlement style on the valley.

A showcase for land and environmental art

Art Safiental is characterised by land and environmental art. These works of art in outdoor spaces consist of installations, both large and small, which create ephemeral impressions on the viewer.

Johannes M. Hedinger, the founder and artistic director of Art Safiental, still attaches great importance to this tradition. This is why he incorporates older artistic perspectives, such as the Furk’Art project, which took place on the Furka Pass between 1983 and 1999 and is regarded as a precursor to most of today’s art projects in the Alps.

The four curators bring together 13 voices from local and contemporary artists. In addition to Hedinger, the curators are Anne-Laure Franchette, Josiane Imhasly, and Joanna Lesnierowska.

The art here is not likeable or easily accessible, and those wanting to view the exhibition need time. The only road in is narrow and steep. By public transport on the Post bus, it takes over an hour to cover the 30-kilometre route. The pieces are scattered in and around the mountain villages of Versam, Tenna, Safien Platz, and Thalkirch.

One small-scale installation is a project by Andrea Todisco from Rhäzüns in canton Graubünden, who set up his sculptural work Bauprofile at the far end of the valley. It announces impossible-to-build cubic structures and thus casts doubt on a familiar system. What if proposed future projects were elastic and malleable?

Art installations all the way to the summit

The Moving Landscape project, created by the Brazilian-Swedish artist couple Quarto, is also playful. A cube made of aluminium rods is situated in an Alpine landscape. The installation symbolises the contrast between the natural and the cultural. In a performance that was captured on video and can be viewed along the trail, the artist moves the permeable space of the cube in a slow, ceremonial manner across an Alpine meadow.

On the summit, those who have hiked up are rewarded with a piece entitled M.Ü.M., an abbreviation which stands for “metres above sea level”. With the help of the Federal Office of Topography and the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern, Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller built measuring stations that measure absolute and relative altitude with extreme precision at five locations around the valley.

Roman Keller and Christina Hemauer set up their measuring station “M.Ü.M.” – it makes shifts of millimetres visible. Dominik Landwehr

It turns out that we are all living with outdated altitude data. “The sea is rising due to global warming, the Alps are rising due to ongoing geological folding of the Alps, and the mountainside in Tenna is eroding due to unstable subsoil,” the two explain. The aim is to continue carrying out annual measurements for comparison even after the Art Safiental Biennale has ended. “This way, we quantify and bring attention to the tiny changes that would otherwise go unnoticed.”

Spirit levels in the power station tunnel

In the seemingly unspoilt Safien valley, you can also see other, pre-existing man-made installations. There are several structures for generating electricity, like the Zevreila power stations that were built in the mid-20th century. A large proportion of the infrastructure consists of underground pipes and tunnels and are not visible to visitors at first.

Art Safiental takes advantage of this. The video installation Tangere by Dutch artist Vibeke Mascini is shown at the farthest back part of the valley in a power station tunnel. We see hands with its fingers attached to small spirit levels – a rather defiant commentary by the artist on people’s relationship with water.

In front of the power station is a listening station by French-Swiss artist Magali Dougoud. In an audio piece, the artist tells the story of zombie mermaids and the exploitative behaviour of humans. It is an opera that mixes sounds from the surrounding area and the River Rabiusa.

Magali Dougoug creates a work of sound art called “Zombie Mermaids” in a sound station in front of the Zevreila power station near Safien. It tells the story of a mythical creature that rebels against the prevailing conditions. Dominik Landwehr

One of the most famous voices to be heard in the valley this year is that of Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto with his installation and performance From Earth to Earth. In a ritual performance, he buried one of his sculptures in Safiental. The work is a reminder that everything we produce and consume comes from the earth and returns to it.

Neto caused a sensation in Switzerland back in 2018 with his 20-metre-high textile sculpture GaiaMotherTree at Zurich’s main railway station.

Ernesto Neto (back, centre) sank a sculpture he created last year in a ritual performance “Earth to Earth” at a place of power next to the mountain stream. Andrea Todisco

‘Women’s unpaid care work will be crucial in the future’

Another well-known perspective is that of the Indian artist Ravi Agarwal, whose works have also been shown at the exhibition in Kassel, Germany, known as Documenta.

Together with the Chilean glaciologist Paulina Lopez, he made a documentary on glaciers, which can be seen inside a chapel. Scientific knowledge about glaciers is still quite limited, even today, as glaciers are melting away in the wake of the climate crisis.

Ravi Agarwal and Paulina Lopez are investigating the disappearance of glaciers. In a 15th-century fresco in the church of Tenna, they have discovered a tiny hint of a glacier that has long since melted. Dominik Landwehr

Art Safiental 2024 invites us to think of scenarios and find ways to build a future-proof and sustainable world together. The Spiis bags by Paloma Ayala, for which the valley residents have collected fabric, are part of a project called Breastworks.

Breastworks is a public oven that Ayala built together with hotel chef Sascha Skraban. “It’s a reminder of the unpaid care work that women do, which will continue to be crucial in the future,” says Hedinger.

Edited by Benjamin von Wyl. Adapted from German by David Kaufher/gw