Gmuured. Installation von Eliane Kölbener

Searching, arranging, layering - in "trochemuure", a wall is created by joining and stacking natural stones together without using any mortar. Over 100 years ago, South Tyrolean guest workers practiced this technique to build the retaining walls for the mountain inn on the Schäfler. Between 1913 and 1914, at an altitude of around 2000 meters, they created the basis for the touristic use of the plateau between Ebenalp and Säntis.

With her analog camera, Eliane Kölbener accompanied civilian service workers who renovated old dry stone walls on the Schäfler in the summer months of 2018 and 2019. The resulting photos tell of an original craft that is still practiced today. They build a bridge to the seasonal workers of the time, whose craft overlaps with the renovation work in the walls. The names of the unknown guest workers and other details that Kölbener tracked down in the so-called tourist registers of Appenzell Innerrhoden are made visible in an extensive list.

Eliane Kölbener (*1994) from Appenzell is studying under Wigger Bierma at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts, specializing in graphics/typography/photography.


Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.