In recent years, photographer Ester Vonplon (born 1980) has increasingly devoted her artistic practice to exploring lesser-known Swiss landscapes in her immediate surroundings. She is less interested here in the increasingly visible effects of human activity than in places that appear to remain intact and untouched. Aware of the fragility of these ecosystems, she wants to capture nature in photographs before it disappears (perhaps imminently) as a result of climatic change and human intervention. Vonplon sees her works as memento mori: they reveal both the strength and the transience of nature.

For her current bodies of work, the artist has been working at various sites in the Swiss canton of Grisons. These include Uaul scatlè, a primeval spruce forest enclosed by steep rock formations, Val curciusa, a high alpine valley, the Aclatobel forest nature reserve and the riparian landscape of Ogna da Pardiala. She documents these landscapes and found objects using photographic techniques she has developed over recent years.

Careful movement through nature is combined with a spirit of experimentation and an exploration of photographic processes, opening up new perspectives on Swiss landscapes. The peculiar colour effects are typically caused by reactions between the chemicals involved in these processes. The choice of motifs and the variations on formats are deliberate decisions specifically tailored to the exhibition at Fotomuseum Winterthur.