Méandres oder Die Wanderung ans Meer

In August 2011, I spanned the distance from my house door in Zurich to Genova, Italy by foot. I walked 700 km, with a light backpack on my shoulders, good shoes, and a camera close at hand. A physical and mental performance, during which I walked ten to twelve hours a day, long distances day after day. I opened up mountains and seas through this process of walking, through this sole progression of my body through landscape: an early work of mine (1996) was already titled “De la montagne à la mer” (a large-size drawing made on paper). This time around, the intention was transformed into reality. During my walk, I photographed the landscape and the events occurring on the way. These became spontaneous and instinctive snapshots, black and white pictures, printed on simple paper. Later, in the studio, I then work upon these pictures, I involve my body again in scratching the photographs, rubbing them, erasing them, polishing them. The landscape is only slightly visible after this process, the pictures turn into hundreds of thin, filigree, almost transparent sheets. The assemblage of these sheets (more than 500 sheets) form a sort of fresco and narrate the moving and flowing of walking.