SITUATION #85

Myriam Ziehli’s artist book La Montagne Dorée is a fictional play on reality. In Andermatt, a tranquil Alpine village, an Egyptian investor plans to build several hotels, holiday apartments and a golf course to the sum of 1.8 billion Swiss francs. This tourist mega-project is located near the ‘Devil’s Bridge’, whose construction is the subject of an old Swiss legend. Both stories are about large-scale encroachments in nature and new infrastructural projects with the promise of significant benefits. La Montagne Dorée connects reality and myth, with found and staged photographs slowly emerging as character studies, costumes, props and sets of a play. With their sparse captions, these motifs read like a dramatic text – one which allows many interpretations. The viewers’ role in the play is ambiguous: they can either be a passive onlooker or an influential director. These positions are equally philosophical and political: How much does myth play a part in the production of truth? Where and how do individual mental constructs, collective ideas and objective facts overlap? Are we able to clearly distinguish between myth and reality? And who is qualified to do this?

More by Myriam Ziehli: myriamziehli.ch

Kindly supported by Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne.