| anita
strasser |
| photography |
| THE
STONE SEA |
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| This project
is a visual ethnography / oral history of the Stone Sea – a mountain
range in the Austrian and Bavarian Alps where I grew up. The research
concentrates on the every-day lives of people living and working in
this mountain range during the summer season, using storytelling to
draw out people’s experiences and understanding of life in the Stone
Sea. The people include innkeepers, sheep farmers, hunters, the
mountain rescue team and the mountain doctor, members of the Alpine
Association and other voluntary groups, as well as others. The
accompanying photographs, informed by people’s accounts and my own
experience of walking in this mountain range, helped create an intimate
visual ethnography, which provides insight into some of the complex
issues of mountain life such as tradition, tourism, modernisation and
environmental sustainability. The project is a comment on the lack of
ethnographic work that pays attention to the people whose everyday life
is situated in the mountains. Mountain literature generally
concentrates on the highest and most dangerous mountains, on the
climbing achievements of (male) mountaineers, engineering achievements
in chronological order or on the spectacles of nature. Images often
depict mountains and climbers in glossy colour images that celebrate
the “beauty” of the mountains. This book documents / celebrates the
everyday life of people inhabiting this mountain range and recognises
their experiences and knowledges of life and in the Stone Sea. The book is available in German (ISBN: 9781527265103; paperback, 21x21cm, 318 pages, self-published). If interested, please contact me at anitastrasser@gmail.com |
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