Souvenir di montagna, 2026

Installed for Transiti, the 2026 Bregaglia Biennale curated by Anna Radaelli, Souvenir di montagna is situated at the Maloja Pass, a crossing point par excellence, where for centuries people, goods, languages and cultures have passed between the Engadine and the Bregaglia Valley.

The work appears as a large, habitable erratic boulder. At first glance, it may resemble a defensive structure, an observation post or a military installation set within the Alpine landscape. This ambiguity is intentional. Souvenir di montagna evokes imagery linked to the defence and control of the territory, stripping it of its original function and restoring it to a different experience of the place.

Its proximity to Festung Maloja, built to guard the pass and defend the Swiss border against the possible expansionist ambitions of Fascist Italy, is no coincidence. Whilst the fortress arose from the need to surveil, control and protect, Souvenir di montagna reverses this meaning: it transforms the idea of defence into an opportunity for observation and listening, replacing vigilance with contemplation.

The openings do not function as loopholes aimed at a threat, but as points of contact with the landscape. The interior is not a space for protection from the enemy, but rather a place to rest and immerse oneself in the mountains.

The work engages with the site’s military history without either celebrating or erasing it. It takes up certain formal characteristics to subvert them, transforming a language designed for conflict into a means of relating to nature.

In a territory defined by transit, Souvenir di montagna thus proposes another crossing: the shift from a strategic gaze to a contemplative one, from defence to experience, from boundary to relationship.