ES WERDE SCHNEE
A Search for Traces of Snowmaking in Alpine Landscapes
A white slope carries an image of winter. In Es werde Schnee, I followed what it takes to maintain that image: snow cannons, reservoirs, pipelines and pumping systems, and the water and energy needed to keep them running.
I worked in Alpine regions in Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. In a warming climate, snowmaking helps sustain skiing when natural snowfall alone is no longer enough. Its infrastructure also changes the landscape. A place is altered so that it can continue to offer an experience of nature.
Once on the slope, machine-made snow can look much like natural snow. The difference lies in how it comes to be there, and in the systems that make its presence possible. I was interested in how our expectations of winter guide what is built, altered and maintained in the mountains. Producing snow also means keeping a particular idea of the Alps in place.
Throughout the project, I was concerned with snow, its disappearance and the effort to prolong its presence, and with what we call natural in a landscape increasingly organised around the production of winter.
EXHIBITIONS
2026 / Die Berge Tirols / group / Museum Europäischer Kulturen / Berlin / GER
2022 / 12. Wiesbadener Fototage / group / Wiesbaden / GER
2021 / VGH Fotopreis / Galerie für Fotografie / group / Hannover / GER
2021 / Sparkassenstiftung Lüneburg / solo / Lüneburg / GER
2019 / Chobi Mela Festival / screening / Dhaka / BD
AWARDS
2022 / True Picture Award / nomination
2021 / PUNKT Journalist Award / winner
2020 / VGH Fotopreis / winner
Images from the project have been published in Die Zeit, Zeit Campus, Falter, Datum, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)
Ausstellungsansicht: ©Juergen Straser
