Swiss Signs

SWISS SIGNS © Andrea Alessio 2008 - 2014 This photographs - still a work in progress - have been taken over the last three years in the northern of Switzerland. I was fascinated by the ambiguity of this landscape, in which nature looks well respected and preserved. Looking closer, the landscape reveals its artificiality. The harmony of woods and fields is not a result of nature but of human intervention. Then, I started looking at the landscape under a different perspective: the edge of the road became a land-art artifact, in which colored fire hydrants were competing with flowers. Or again, an apparently casual sign on the road became a coded message pointing at a some leaves of grass illegally trespassing the border. A road sign unfortunately fell down and is being covered by nature. Strange signs in the fields reminded of alien tracks. An ambiguity that can be also found in my project Un_Natural Bestiary. Photography thus becomes an instrument to discover and understand the world around us and is a means of framing and understanding reality through its representation. Andrea Alessio