Taming Untamed Nature

The landscape and tourist infrastructure of winter sports destinations have been among the subjects of Melanie Manchot’s work for the past ten years. At the invitation of the INN SITU series, she spent several weeks last winter in the municipality of Gaschurn, located 1,000 metres up in Vorarlberg’s Silvretta Montafon ski area.

The resulting photographs and videos created for this exhibition focus on the behind-the-scenes work in mountain resorts – the hidden skill sets, activities and routines required to make the winter landscape accessible. For Manchot, this meant rising long before dawn to observe maintenance work on snowmaking machines, snow groomers heading off and cable cars being checked.

Her work raises urgent questions regarding our perspectives on nature, yet she steers clear of didactic statements or polemic positioning. The fascination with primordial natural spaces and the technical organisation required to render them accessible. The long-term work group ‘Mountainworks’ examines the relationship between people and the environment and questions how we deal with the responsibility for and the maintenance of environments that we temporarily manage

Behind the scenes of the sublime

As well as sublime shots of sweeping winter landscapes and moody images of idyllically lit villages beneath the alpine night sky, Manchot has taken photographs of huge heaps of deposited snow, and shot videos of constantly repeated hand movement patterns on control panels or of workers shovelling and sweeping.

The additional layer to her works is that regardless of the subject matter, they always have an independent layer best described as formal or graphic. Colour, proportion, lines, expanses – it is the manner in which she engages with the media of film and photography that opens up avenues for fully comprehending her work. Documentation and fiction combine with each other, discourse and form find multi-layered expression.

Snowdance – region, image, music

One of the objectives of the INN SITU series is to provide a forum for photographers to engage closely with the region and to collaborate with a Tyrol or Vorarlberg composer, who has been invited by us. Manchot’s work Snowdance typifies the artistic approach behind that format. All of the works in the exhibition are the outcome of personal encounters and of the willingness of the ski area’s employees to open up and become involved with the work of the London-based artist.

»Snowdance« is a choreography for eight snow groomers. Manchot used sketches to show the drivers which moves to perform, so that by interpreting her “open score” they actively collaborated in the work. The images of the machines dancing by night were captured using a drone. The soundtrack for this unique video work was written by Tyrolean composer and zither virtuoso Christof Dienz, who was also commissioned to stage the INN SITU concert inspired by Manchot’s work.

It is precisely this kind of interplay of artistic competencies in and on behalf of a region that the INN SITU projects seek to achieve: an outsider’s perspective, direct contact and interaction with local people, everyday cultures and local landscapes and spaces. The outcomes are new artistic works which draw on the region for inspiration, a sense of connectedness and relevance.

Melanie Manchot

Born in Witten (Germany), Melanie Manchot studied at NYU and the Royal College of Art, London. She works with photography, film, video and sound. Participatory and collaborative strategies are central elements of her artistic practice, which often invokes the interface between documentary and staged forms. Solo exhibitions: inter alia the MAC VAL Museum of Contemporary Art in Paris, Whitechapel Gallery, London, and most recently Kunsthaus Pasquart in Biel. Works by Manchot are held in numerous international collections. She lives and works in London.

INN SITU – Music and Photography in Dialogue

For the INN SITU series, twice a year we invite well-known international photographers to the region to develop a new exhibition that reflects their encounters with Tyrol and Vorarlberg. At the same time, for each exhibition we invite selected musicians and composers from Tyrol or Vorarlberg to stage a new concert to accompany and complement the artists’ exhibition.

Christof Dienz – Mountainworks. Das Konzert. Redaktion, Kamera, Schnitt: Thomas Osl, STUMMLAUT Tonstudio.

For the current exhibition, a concert format which resonates with Melanie Manchot’s work was created by one of the region’s best-known international musicians, Tyrolean composer Christof Dienz. Dienz’s compositions occupy terrain on the boundaries between classical and contemporary music and also incorporate improvisation and elements of traditional alpine music. For INN SITU he has assembled an outstanding ensemble.

Christof Dienz on his work for INN SITU:

“The starting point for this concert installation is the work which people do in the mountains, and the resulting interplay between nature and technology, captured in short videos and video loops by photographer Melanie Manchot. I have attempted to musically interweave naturally played acoustic instruments with electronic music, which manipulates the analogue sounds and carries them forwards into the digital realm. The music responds to the projections and light plays an important role. In the same way that in the mountains ski areas influence nature and the landscape, the interaction between the musicians and the technology is perceptible in the music.”

Christof Dienz – Composition, Bassoon, Zither

© Lukas Beck

Ivana Pristasova, Violin

_C_MarkusBruckner

Walter Seebacher, Clarinets

Alexandra Dienz, Double Bass

Florian Bogner, Sound Design

© Markus Bruckner

Mathilde Hoursiangou, Piano

© Markus Brucker