Deutsch
English
Background information
In their series 'ÉTÉ', Olaf UNVEZART and Sebastian SCHELS deal with an alpine landscape beyond the usual postcard motifs. They document winter sports resorts that were created from the 1960s onwards in a way that is almost unthinkable today as vacation colonies designed on the drawing board. Their conception as space-efficient, high-density and traffic-free places for everyone corresponds entirely to the functional tourism architecture of the 1960s and 1970s. From today's perspective, as more and more ski resorts succumb to climate change, the utopias of yesteryear seem to have fallen out of time.
Content
For the photo book 'ÉTÉ', which is already out of print, Olaf UNVEZART and Sebastian SCHELS documented a total of 33 ski resorts in the French and Italian Western Alps with their plate cameras. Their photographs paint a picture dominated by tourist architecture and infrastructure. Through their subtle, almost poetic gaze, Olaf UNVERZART and Sebastian SCHELS create a photographic monument to the ideas of that time. All photographs were taken during the summer months and lend the snowless and deserted places a strangely enraptured, melancholic character." (freely translated, © Kettler Verlag, 2020)