“The best wood for the roof of a stall grows next to the stall,” says the Grisons-born shingle maker, Eva Gredig. She is one of seven shingle-making specialists from the Alpine region that are exhibiting their craftsmanship in the Swiss Alpine Museum, Bern. Visitors can pick up a hammer themselves, join in the slate-making workshop and cover parts of the Alpine museum in slates together.
The Alpine workshop exhibition depicts daily life rather than an idealised Alpine world. What does it mean to create a product with your hands in a digitalised and globalised world? How much actual manual work do modern trades contain nowadays? How do you make a living from it? Besides slate makers and a ski builder, the exhibition includes further trades from the Alpine region just waiting to be discovered: carpentry, violin making, cobbling, cheese making and weaving.
“Alpine workshop. The Artisans”, Alpine Museum Bern, until 27 September 2020. www.alpinesmuseum.ch
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