Pauline Julier

Le verdissement des Alpes

Colour slides, slide projector, 2026

Pauline Julier transforms the reservoir at Szilassy Park into a projection space using a carousel slide projector loaded with 80 colour slides. The images float above the water still covering the ground, recalling the site’s original purpose.

The installation, Le verdissement des Alpes, takes its name from a book of the same name, written by art historian Jill Gasparina. The book, featuring images selected by Julier, opens with an observation: as glaciers and permanent snow cover disappear from Alpine summits, the mountains are gradually turning green – a change that is visible from space. From there, the authors move through a series of cultural and scientific questions linked to greenness, climate change and the Alps, examining subjects such as the growth of alpine biomass and algae-coloured streams and offering up both idealised and unsettling images of the mountains.

Installed inside the reservoir above a few centimetres of water – a reminder of the role Alpine glaciers play as freshwater reserves – the slide sequence moves between observation and reflection, taking a multi-faceted look at the future of the very mountains that surround the park.

Pauline Julier (CH, b. 1981*) lives and works in Switzerland.
Le verdissement des Alpes, texts by Jill Gasparina, images selected by Pauline Julier, published by EDHEA, HES-SO Valais-Wallis, Les presses du réel, 2026.
Research assistant: Margot Sparkes.