sediment

2022

In 2022, the Lago di Vogorno in Switzerland was completely drained for restoration work on the dam. The monumental Contra Dam, also known as the Verzasca Dam, was completed in 1965 and is still considered a technical masterpiece of Swiss engineering. Planned and built in record time, the 220 meter high arch dam rises impressively from the narrow Verzasca Valley - it is one of the highest dams in Europe and a central pillar of the region’s energy supply.

This photographic series confronts us with the consequences of a system that continually exhausts itself - at the expense of nature, biodiversity, and ultimately our own history. The empty reservoir becomes a metaphor for a world that undermines itself: by transforming landscapes to generate energy, we simultaneously erase their cultural and ecological identity. Around 70 buildings, terraces, fields, the old valley road, and several bridges sank beneath the surface of the lake - half a valley disappeared underwater.

What legacy do we leave behind when we are gone? What grows from the sediments of progress? What remains embedded in the emulsion, in the image, in us? The monochrome images are created deep down, inside the emptied basin. Mud clings to your shoes, fine dust settles on everything. Each step leaves traces in a landscape that is usually hidden. The camera I work with is roughly as old as the dam itself - a tool from an era of optimism, when technology still promised a future. Amid dust and rubble, it records what remains. The film gathers light, but also desolation. It captures what no longer moves. Terraces, paths, remnants of nature - they appear like archaeological fragments of a forgotten civilization. The photographs reveal not only the ground but also an uncomfortable truth: our way of creating is also a way of destroying.