Gletscherzoo / Glacier Tourism
Like an endangered species in a zoo, glaciers and other disappearing landscapes have become an experiential attraction for the modern traveler. While the ease of access to more remote regions of the Earth has fueled this expanding tourism sector, the Rhone Glacier Grotto has been welcoming visitors since the 1870’s. At that point in time, the glacial landscape was vastly larger, while our effect on it was drastically smaller.
Over the past 120 years the situation has reversed – the Rhone Glacier has lost approximately 1300 meters of cumulated length and the human impact has become unmistakably visible. The movement and melting of glaciers is a natural phenomenon, however our impact on the global climate has accelerated this process at an exponential rate, meaning many of the Alpine glaciers will have melted away by the end of the century. The impacts of vanishing glaciers are not only a matter of changing landscapes and ecosystems; they have profound effects on available water as a resource for food, energy, and the health of associated ecosystems.
The images in this series are two-fold, showing beauty but also desperation. They serve as a stark reminder of the impact we have on our magnificent landscape.
Rhone Glacier, Switzerland
2020
What is Dutch?
My whole life, I called myself Dutch without truly knowing what that meant. Returning to the Netherlands, I set out to rediscover the country of my childhood memories—only to find a place both familiar and unrecognizable.
Guided by the longing for a Broodje Kroket, this series moves between nostalgia and reality, questioning what it means to belong. The windmills and flood barriers were still there, but the the rituals of my childhood—Hagelslag for breakfast, Broodje at the beach, Chocomel and Pindakaas—felt distant. Scheveningen, once the backdrop of my childhood summers, had become a tourist spectacle. The snack bar of my memories was replaced by souvenir stalls, fast-food chains, and street performers.
Have my memories or has reality shifted over time? Is my identity an evolving reconstruction of the past? Have I lost something, or was it never really mine? What is Dutch? is an open, ongoing exploration of heritage, memory, and the search for home.
Frederik van den Berg (1986*) is a photographer based in Zurich, Switzerland. Born in Hong Kong to Dutch and German parents, he has moved from place to place from a young age.
Trained as an audio engineer, Frederik worked in the German music industry before shifting to photography. His work explores landscapes, organic textures, and scale—capturing nature in ways that blur the line between the vast and the intimate. His recent projects explore the tension between human presence in nature and our desire to seek out, experience, and capitalize on rare and remote places.
Currently sailing and photographing along the Atlantic, Frederik continues to explore the relationship between people and the environments they move through.
Location
Contact
Exhibitions
- 2022coup de cœurs – IPFO, Olten, Switzerland
- work in progress ver. 2, OnCurating, Zurich, Switzerland
- 2021Edition365, BJP & 1854, NewArtCity, VR
- work in progress, IPFO, Olten, Switzerland
- 2018MOUNTAIN.WATER.POWER, South Tyrol, Italy
- Alpenträume, AWCZ, Zurich, Switzerland
Publications
- 2024Cake at Four - Self-published
Exhibitions
- 2022coup de cœurs – IPFO, Olten, Switzerland
- work in progress ver. 2, OnCurating, Zurich, Switzerland
- 2021Edition365, BJP & 1854, NewArtCity, VR
- work in progress, IPFO, Olten, Switzerland
- 2018MOUNTAIN.WATER.POWER, South Tyrol, Italy
- Alpenträume, AWCZ, Zurich, Switzerland
Publications
- 2024Cake at Four - Self-published