HIDDEN - Verborgene Orte in der Schweiz

Hidden - Verborgene Orte in der Schweiz

In the art project HIDDEN, photographer Kostas Maros and art historian Catherine Iselin explore what it is that constitutes the fascination of hidden places. Together they selected and visited 25 places throughout Switzerland which, for the majority of people, have remained inaccessible or hidden up to now. The photographs and texts that resulted from their search for the unusually usual, the strangely remarkable the variously unique, have been channelled into an exhibition and publication of the same name.

A major concern of the exhibition concept was to engage with the issue of how to capture a feeling or state and render it visible in an image, or how to evoke it through an image – without robbing that image of the magic of the invisible.

In the framework of HIDDEN more than 100 photographs of 25 hidden places were taken, a selection of which were exhibited at the water reservoir IWB Filter 4 in 2018 and later on, in 2019, as a guest exhibition, together with the exhibition 'everything is poetry' of the world famous catalan artist Joan Miró at the museum Forum Würth Arlesheim. The exhibition aims to do justice to the aspiration to translate what was perceived in those places into images and so facilitate access to what is hidden and draw attention to the country, the places, the people and the corresponding stories.

HIDDEN is devoted to places that are distinguished not just by being hidden, but above all by their capacity to evoke fascination and curiosity in people or to leave an extraordinary impression when they are perceived. At the basis of the project is the idea of taking an unbiased look at unknown places in one’s own country and giving expression to them through the medium of photography. The fascination of the hidden should become tangible through the impact of the images alone.