2017: Snow and Desert

Whether in the context of glittering winter landscapes, perilous polar deserts or inviting ski slopes, snow fascinates and attracts people. But snow means much more than this. Without snow we would have no water reservoirs in the mountains, no thermal insulation for the permafrost, no protection for fauna and flora, and no ice feedback to the atmosphere. Snow is protection and threat, climate memory and environmental agent, a place of extremes and poetry. We associate desert with sand, and the snow desert with the sand desert as a vast uninhabitable expanse where feelings of impotence and forsakenness prevail, and humans are thrown back on their own resources.

During the 2017 edition of the E.A.T. forum, the participants discussed and philosophised about visions, ideas, designs and projects that have been either created for the snow landscapes or dreamed up in the desert landscapes. 

Curated by Daniel Baumann, Bice Curiger, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Philip Ursprung.