Many different languages are heard on the streets of Zermatt. Portuguese is one of them. A language, however, that is not spoken by the many tourists, but by the many guest workers in the village. In order to cope with mass tourism, the tourism construct depends on many workers, mostly foreigners. In Zermatt, mainly Portuguese. Of the approximately 5,460 villagers, 950 Portuguese live in Zermatt and another 580 in the neighbouring village of Täsch.

The majority of this foreign community works in the hotel industry, mainly in housekeeping. It is these people who maintain the pure-looking hotel atmosphere and keep the rooms looking good without making an appearance. Because of this impersonal aspect, there is also no association with people. The cleaned room is taken for granted.

These are people seeking financial happiness in an alien environment. Many come for an indefinite period, some stay for life. The driving force is always the return to the home country, which, however, often remains unattainable due to the financial commitment. This leaves only the shoulder season, when the majority of Portuguese return to their homeland and are able to quench their homesickness, saudade, a little.

It is women and men who stand for the Portuguese community in Zermatt and make their presence felt through this work.

In the scientific context, the term Anthropocene is increasingly used. The term refers to a new age of the Earth that is determined by humans. This is due to the various interventions by mankind on biological, geological and atmospheric processes. As a result, the primordial nature of nature is being questioned by man and increasingly influenced by his interventions.

Human interventions, as well as the view that the earth possesses almost inexhaustible natural resources, influence the processes taking place in the Alpine region and at the same time form the trigger for the associated, serious consequences. These do not manifest themselves in natural disasters, as is erroneously assumed, but rather lead to “natural” reactions. The global natural landscape does not act with threat, but shows reactions in its own form. Humans have always tried to resist these processes. The increasingly frequent occurrences testify to the long-term effects of humans on the ecosystem. A field of tension between man and the natural environment is the result.

The free work “movement in the alpine landscape” is an artistic examination of various processes in the alpine mountain landscape. The result is a fragmentary inventory that refers to various scientific facts. For this purpose, various topics such as rockfall, thawing of the permafrost or man-made protective measures are processed in an artistic form of representation. The focus is on the perception of the various alpine natural hazards and the connection to human intervention in order to mitigate, predict or even completely contain the natural hazards. By means of specially created situations, the visual artist Pedro Rodrigues constructs new ways of interpretation. The starting point for the work is the geological changes taking place in the mountains.

Due to global warming, glaciers, which are often used to illustrate climate change, are disappearing all over the world. However, this is also associated with other effects that are often ignored. This is where the work should start and create a more complex approach to the changes taking place.

Over decades, various bodies of water have been reshaped into straight watercourses due to human intervention. This has created a landscape that repeats itself in the same way in different parts of the world. These changes were documented at various locations through the photographic process. The images illustrate how river courses have been standardized by human actions. A new compilation of two different photographs creates a juxtaposition that not only reveals the similarities of these altered banks but also constructs new, artificial landscapes. These visual combinations raise fundamental questions about human impact on the natural environment. The consequences of these interventions are varied and lead to disruptions in natural cycles. The straightened waterways generate stronger currents, which erode the riverbeds more deeply and cause an increased accumulation of rocks and gravel. At the same time, the risk of flooding is heightened, as the rivers have lost their capacity to absorb water, leading to society facing floods more frequently today. These changes make it clear that human interventions in natural water bodies not only alter the landscape but also have profound ecological and hydrological consequences.

Last year, 4.66 million passenger cars were registered for road use in Switzerland. According to the Federal Statistical Office, the average age of passenger cars in Switzerland is 8.4 years.

However, most vehicles are resold and slightly refurbished for export, largely to avoid the administrative burden and disposal costs. Because the guidelines for vehicle registration are constantly being tightened, more and more end-of-life vehicles will be produced in the future. The direction of export is often based on the sales price. The largest buyers of end-of-life vehicles are South America, Asia and West Africa. Despite existing environmental standards and a free trade agreement with the EU that is supposed to regulate and control the road registration of end-of-life vehicles, large quantities of end-of-life vehicles continue to end up on the roads worldwide. The agreed guidelines are repeatedly not controlled or circumvented with handouts. This results in an unregulated export of environmentally harmful vehicles.

End-of-life vehicles are often in a substandard condition that not only pollutes the environment but also endangers the lives of the occupants as well as other road users. Our efforts to replace end-of-life vehicles with new and environmentally friendly ones also increase the number of end-of-life vehicles.

The problem is dealt with in Switzerland, but continues to exist in other countries through our export and consumption behaviour. This merely shifts pollution and health burdens and significantly impedes efforts to mitigate climate change. This is a pattern that is more often seen in climate policy.

The pictures illustrate the cycle of end-of-life vehicles. Among other things, vehicles are shown that were offered for sale in Swiss advertisements with the note “For Export”. Above these pictures, there are covered vehicles that represent valuable mobility as end-of-life vehicles in Senegal and Guniea Bissau.

Preservation extends the life of end-of-life vehicles or vehicles will vegetate in this form in the landscape for many years. The polluting effects will remain and continue for years. At the same time, tonnes of valuable raw materials are lost every year and are thus not recycled in a clean cycle.

The “A9 Untertags” project would create a somewhat different documentary. It focuses exclusively on the unfinished construction of the A9 motorway. The goal of this construction project of the century is to connect the Lower and Upper Valais, but the exact construction time is still uncertain.

In the photographic work, the underground construction phase is accompanied over a longer period of time. The focus is on the lighting atmosphere in the motorway tubes. It reflects a surreal and alien lighting atmosphere that we would not put together in this context. This makes it possible for outsiders to access this unusual intermediate state.

As soon as the first cars roll over the motorway, this own lighting mood escapes and the monotonous lighting mood becomes present as we know it.