Michael Bodiam - Switzerland
“Photographic representations of landscape highlight our inheritance of the earth and products of
habitation. We are visitors.”
Rodney Sappington
The Swiss Alps is an appropriate place to consider our complex relationship to our outside
world. Associated with the leisure pursuits of the well-heeled, efficiency and pristine
landscapes, these works challenge the stereotypical image of effortless pastoral harmony.
They are not so much personal encounters with the sublime, but rather the unexpected or
the incongruous.
There is something of a parallel between the act of moving through a foreign terrain, and the
process of photography itself: Over the course of exploring a new environment, wonderful
things may be discovered, stereotypes challenged and new perspectives formed. Yet for all
this enlightenment, many questions may remain unanswered and much knowledge is
misunderstood or mistaken for irrelevance. Each time a photograph is ‘taken’ and presented
to a viewer, a history is removed from an intricate and ineffable narrative that can be
interpreted with equal multiplicity.
Jesse Alexander, September 2009
Lauterbrunnen Clouds
Chablais from Lavaux
Orange Tarpaulin
Ventilation Shaft
Yellow Buoy
Yellow Sail
