25 km trail, mostly gravel
2.5 hours by electric bike
or 6 hours on foot (no break)

⬈ 600 m / ⬊ 600 m

Outdoor exhibition
Free

Free

Saturday 11 June 2022

Secrets of the Val de Bagnes is an invitation to see the invisible in a landscape.

Enjoy a looped route along the 700^th-anniversary trail: 25 kilometres to be explored on foot or by bike, along meadows and forests interspersed with picturesque hamlets and villages. You may see and feel the area, but the particular spirit of the places and their inhabitants remains out of sight.

To remedy this, between July 2021 and February 2022, eleven photographers were invited to meet a handful of inhabitants. The pictures resulting from their meeting tell us about experiences and relationships with the living and the elements.

From the language of trees to the virtues of medicinal plants, the mysteries of cup-and-ring stones and the magic of the alembic, the photographers reveal worlds reserved for those in the know. Playing on the perception of atmosphere, the images offer a glimpse of unique concerns, knowledge and know-how – representation of secrets for some, evidence for others!

Leaflet with map and list of artists to download

Online route map

GPX track to download
GPX / KML files allow you to export the route of your walk to your GPS (or other navigation tool)

Cynthia Mai Ammann – Discover the story of Femmes aujourd’hui, an association created in the 1980s by and for women with the aim of bringing the voices and life paths of many talented women to the forefront, told here through the memories and perspectives of three former members.

Meeting with Ursula Vaudan, Edith Fellay and Claudine Sauvain-Dugerdil

Graziella Antonini – Mushroom pickers never reveal their secret spots, sometimes going so far as to make detours to reach their foraging hotspot. They are, however, quite loquacious when it comes to talking about their passion for fungi, a shared knowledge that Graziella Antonini seeks to transmit in her compositions.

Meeting with Philippe Gaillard and Stéphane Michellod

Tomasz Fall – Cup-and-ring stones are mysterious rocks found in large numbers in the valley, with rounded engravings carved by human hands. As their dating is mostly impossible, their meaning and use are the source of many hypotheses.

Meeting with Gilbert Bruchez

Yann Haeberlin – Medicinal plants have incredible virtues, benefits, stories, weaknesses, strengths and tastes; this knowledge is passed on through books and practice, and by the elders.

Meeting with Isabelle Gabioud

Yann Laubscher – Hunting is an impenetrable and enigmatic practice that isn’t always understood in modern society. What does it involve? Are secrets passed down from one generation to the next?

Meeting with hunters from Verbier

Arthur Lehmann – The Peiloz forest, once considered haunted, was for a long time the setting for myths and legends of all kinds. Today, it also happens to be, among other things, the playground of skier Maude Besse. A witch of sorts in this place, she draws inspiration from the forest in the way she approaches her sport.

Meeting with Maude Besse

Laurence Rasti – There are phenomena that we cannot understand, or at least not yet. Marie, the “miracle worker”, knows this and invites Laurence Rasti to contemplate what cannot be seen.

Meeting with Marie

Virginie Rebetez – Trees communicate by means of an underground, invisible language, the alphabet of which is still largely unknown to us. By using the work of the bark beetles, a type of beetle that ravages spruce forests, Virginie Rebetez gives visible form to this coded, silent, ancient and mysterious language.

Meeting with Olivier Guex

Alfio Tommasini – Combining the four elements, air, earth, fire and water, distillation is a process in symbiosis with the rhythms of nature. Long months after the fruit is picked in autumn, Alfio Tommasini discovers the ritual of creating distillates in the old, smoky still of Champsec in the middle of winter.

Meeting with Jean-Émile Fellay

Laurence von der Weid – Marguerite has a secret for making her fritters deliciously crumbly and irresistibly melt-in-the-mouth. An exquisite excuse to meet a generous, ethereal woman whose conversations are full of wisdom.

Meeting with Marguerite Perraudin

Photographer of Bagnes:

Jancsi Hadik – Bruson is full of inventiveness when it comes to meeting and partying, even in times of lockdown. Bagnes photographer Jancsi Hadik went to discover the key places of the village’s clandestine gatherings.

In collaboration with the Société de développement du Val de Bagnes and Near. association suisse for contemporary photography.