Emma Kunz Center, Würenlos
September 14, 2024 – December 31, 2025
Tue - Sun, 12.00 pm - 5.00 pm
Vernissage: Saturday, September 14, 11.30 a.m.
Registration for the opening
The American photographer Alec Soth (*1969) originates from Minneapolis, where he still lives and works today. Soth is a member of Magnum, the legendary agency that sees photography as a medium of social engagement. In his photographic studies, he devotes himself to people, landscapes or scenes that at first glance appear unspectacular. And he focuses on lifestyles that are sometimes on the margins of society.
Since the publication of his long-term photographic observation of people living on the Mississippi ("Sleeping by the Mississippi", 2004), Soth has been one of the most outstanding photographers of our time. He shows reality as it is: In contrast to the reporting of other visual media, which aims for sensationalism and viewer ratings, he does not take a voyeuristic or pathetic look at people or things, but simply tells their story. He simply photographs people in their living spaces - and these are socio-political realities that are rarely of interest to the mass media.
Invited to work in the Limmat Valley as part of ART FLOW, Alec Soth took the specific energy of the Emma Kunz Center in Würenlos as the starting point for a photographic journey of discovery. He was impressed by the power of the place and the fascination of the visitors, some of whom come from far and wide to engage with the Emma Kunz Grotto. Based on this thematic focus, the artist worked in the Limmat Valley in spring 2024.
He visited people who deal professionally with the subject of energy and healing - fortune tellers, forest bathers, shamans, plant healers, hypnotists, mediums, etc.. He immersed himself in their working realities, exposed himself to their specific practices and portrayed people in their extraordinary world. The result was a diary, the "Limmat Valley Diary". The photographic diary, supplemented by the artist's handwritten thoughts and impressions, provides a special view of the Limmat Valley, showing us a scene, indeed a culture, that often operates in secret. "Limmat Valley Diary" documents a photographic journey that explores the relationship between landscape and people and the energy that lies within it. Soth says: "This work is about the restorative power of tactile encounters with place".
The exhibition is a cooperation between ART FLOW and the Emma Kunz Center.
to the mediation program