ROGER EBERHARD AT FESTIVAL DES IMAGES IN VEVEY

Gallery artist Roger Eberhard‘s new series “Escapism” was on view during the Images Vevey visual arts biennial throughout the city – on billboards and public transportation. His solo show at Camera Museum Vevey, curated by Stefano Stoll, will continue until January 8!

About the series:

Escapism

In Switzerland, coffee is served with a small cup of cream whose aluminum lid features a miniature picture, making it probably the smallest image carrier in the country.

From picturesque Switzerland to foreign and exotic places, for the past 50 years these lids reproduced the world many times over. Thanks to their massive distribution throughout Switzerland, these miniatures helped shaping the visual and often stereotypical understanding of the world long before social media did. During several decades these illustrated lids were heavily collected, with people buying them at flea markets, in stores and at dedicated fairs for up to thousands of francs.

Images of exotic beaches, majestic icebergs or vast untouched deserts incite a feeling of Wanderlust – especially in a small landlocked country like Switzerland. They are inviting the viewers to escape the concerns of their daily lives while drinking a cup of coffee. The photographs in “Escapism” are extreme close-ups of these lids’ imagery. On one hand the romantic landscape pictures on those lids evoke a sense of Fernweh, but they also seem to forebode the destruction of the planet’s ecosystem and the ecological costs of globalisation; The melting of the ice caps due to global warming or the exotic beaches which will cease to exist when the sea levels subsequently rise.

The photographs’ visible cmyk printing pattern, which originates from enlarging the lids’ miniature landscapes roughly 100 times, draws attention to the original production technique and invites for a close examination of the source material and to reflect on its ambiguity.

For more info, please follow the link!

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