Reschenwerk

Series of five photographs printed on fiberglass panels, 84 x 119 cm

In 1949/50 a huge new reservoir drowned the ancient natural and cultural landscape below the Reschenpass. The decision to create the reservoir was not even remotely democratic. For the sake of national industrial developement the inhabitants of Graun/Curon were forced to leave their homes without receiving anything resembling a fair compensation from the post-fascist government. By the summer of 1950 every single building had been destroyed and flooded. The families were either forced to emigrate or move to barracks provided for a period of two years until they could rebuild their livelihoods.
Today, this place attracts all the attention it desparately needed back then: nearly 50,000 Instagram posts speak for a place dominated by mass tourism and the quick, supeficial judgement of its visitors. What interests me as an artist with a very close family connection to this place is to document how the numerous people who arrive day after day to take a photo of the popular motif of the sunken church tower relate to this man-made landscape and thus its history. The photo series is the result of research and conversations, as well as visits and on-site observations.