Visits To My Village

In 1990, I emigrated from the small village of Vrin in the Swiss Alps to the United States, where I’ve lived since. Throughout these years, I’ve returned home for a visit nearly every year.

My periodic visits to my village, or perhaps the long absences, gave me a view of the accelerated changes the village and its inhabitants were going through. Many farming techniques I witnessed and practiced during my childhood disappeared. The scythe we used nearly every day in summer got put away on a nail in the barn for good, and on a visit, I watched two farmers make their last hay bundles above the village.

I realized I was now seeing Vrin with the eyes of an emigrant. Denied the gradual, gentle evolution of the village, I felt a great loss, which compelled me to document my trips to better process the changes and stay connected to my family and home.

“Visits To My Village” is a diary of yearly entries intended to keep me connected to my roots. The act of photographing, the interactions with my family and the villagers — the process of creating this work — is as important to me as the photographs themselves.

A book with photographs spanning thirty years of this project is in the works. Accompanying texts in English, German, and Romontsch, my native tongue, will speak to each audience. The locals will get insight into my emotions as an emigrant while those for whom the content of the images might feel like an enigma will get much-needed context.