Crans Montana, Photographer: Kunstanstalt Brügger @ Alpines Museum der Schweiz, Bern
Donate for the collection
Collecting, participating, filling in the gaps
The Swiss Alpine Museum collects everything related to the mountains: objects, photos, graphic art, and documents. Its holdings include an extensive photographic collection (comprising around 400,000 items) and objects bequeathed by big names in mountain sport such as Erhard Loretan. Ensuring appropriate storage and handling of the objects in the collection requires time, staff, and a special kind of infrastructure. Recovering precious finds and putting them on display takes additional funding, as is the case with the participatory collection project «Lost and Found Memories Office». This asks members of the public to bring cultural goods alive with stories from everyday life, thereby filling in the gaps in the collection.
Project of the collection
Lost and Found Memories Office № 3: Repair
The zipper is jammed, there’s a hole in the trousers, the ends of the rope are frayed: gear can break anywhere, even on the mountain. Outdoor types who take “repair, don’t replace” as their motto are really helping to reduce the growing mountains of waste. But at what point is it no longer a good idea to repair something, and how can sustainable mountain sports be achieved while facing the challenges of consumption, safety, and material care?
The collection of the Swiss Alpine Museum is jam-packed with repaired objects. These finds and their stories about maintenance rituals, creative repairs, mishaps, and emergencies in the mountains will all be presented in the “Lost and Found Memories Office № 3”.
