Cornelia Blatter
10 letters from Furka Pass | 10 Briefe vom Furkapass
Memories of the Furka Pass and its winding mountain road date back to Cornelia Blatter’s childhood summers, when her family would drive over the pass on their way to Alpine vacations. The summit always held a sense of solitude. In 1997, she returned for a ten-day stay at Furkablick as part of Furk’Art, where she wrote letters to lost loved ones—some deceased, others who had drifted away—and released them on balloons. Their destination remains unknown. Only the photos endure.
Cornelia Blatter has been active as an artist, designer, publisher and educator in both Europe and the US for over three decades. Her art has been shown at venues such as the Holly Solomon Gallery, Swiss Institute in New York, Kunsthalle Winterthur, Shedhalle in Zürich and Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. As the “Co” in CoMa, she collaborates with artists, museums and galleries on the design and publication of books, exhibitions and websites.
10 Letters from Furka Pass, created as an edition, is part of the Archive Furkablick Furkart and the collection of the Swiss National Library and has been exhibited at the Sandra Gering Gallery in New York. The work reflects the unique context of Furkart, where, as Alexander Scrimgeour notes, “artists intervened directly in the Hotel Furkablick or staged performances in the landscape… almost all of those that remain are discreet or at least anti-monumental.”