In the 1930s Emanuel Gyger and Arnold Klopfenstein photographed Swiss freeriders. In modern-day Shanghai, Chinese children learn to ski at the SNOW 51 artificial ski centre located in a shopping complex.
Gyger&Klopfenstein/Snow51/Alpines Museum der Schweiz
The Beijing Winter Games are due to open on February 4, 2022. Globally, China is ranked in eighth position in terms of the number of skiing areas available, and first for the number of indoor ski facilities.
Snow51/Alpines Museum der Schweiz
The creators of Chinese ski resorts are often inspired by Alpine architecture. At the Thaiwoo Ski Resort, close to the Winter Games site, a beginner learns to snowboard.
Gyger&Klopfenstein/Keystone/Alpines Museum der Schweiz
Chinese schoolchildren wave Chinese flags and the 2022 Olympic bid logo as part of China's bid campaign for the 2022 Winter Games. The photo was taken at Yanqing, a suburb of Beijing, on January 16, 2015.
Ng Han Guan/Keystone
The classic image of a freerider in deep snow has not altered much over the years, but the ski equipment has certainly changed.
Gyger&Klopfenstein/Alpines Museum der Schweiz
One hundred years after ski pioneers began to hit the slopes in the Alps, wealthy Chinese from the cities have started to get a taste for the sport.
Snow51/Alpines Museum der Schweiz
The Bern exhibition contrasts rare black-and-white photos from Adelboden with a small video reportage from an indoor ski centre in Shanghai.
Gyger&Klopfenstein/Alpines Museum der Schweiz
A photo exhibition compares early Swiss ski culture with the growth of the sport in modern-day China, which is the host of the 2022 Winter Games.
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Thomas Kern was born in Switzerland in 1965. Trained as a photographer in Zürich, he started working as a photojournalist in 1989. He was a founder of the Swiss photographers agency Lookat Photos in 1990. Thomas Kern has won twice a World Press Award and has been awarded several Swiss national scholarships. His work has been widely exhibited and it is represented in various collections.
Part of the exhibition is dedicated to rare black-and-white images by photographers Emanuel Gyger (1886-1951) and Arnold Klopfenstein (1896-1961) from Adelboden, who were witnesses to the early beginnings of skiing in Switzerland. The two photographers made their names as entrepreneurs for a postcard publishing firm. The photo collection has been meticulously assembled over many years by the private collector Daniel Müller-Jentsch.
In the 1930s the skiing bug spread rapidly through the Alps. The photos show idyllic scenes from the snowy Bernese Oberland region, adrenalin-filled downhill runs, daring jumps and pristine white slopes and peaks.
These historic images contrast with those taken in China, host of the 2022 Winter Games that kick off on February 4. The exhibition also features a video reportage filmed several weeks ago at SNOW 51, an indoor ski centre located in a Shanghai shopping complex.
Skiing and ski infrastructure have grown rapidly in China in the last few years. The organisers of the Games say over 300 million Chinese now participate regularly in skiing, ice hockey and other cold weather pastimes. The country now boasts over 650 standard ice rinks and 803 indoor and outdoor ski resorts.
The Beijing Games will be the first Winter Olympics to use virtually 100% artificial snow by deploying more than 100 snow generators and 300 snow-making guns working flat out to cover the ski slopes.
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