View of the mountains of the Engadin.
Photo via: My Switzerland

From February 26 to 28, an exciting and innovative expedition led by French artist Pierre Huyghe will take place in the Swiss Alps. Entitled What Will Happen, the expedition is a collaboration between Huyghe and the architects and artists Francois Roche and Camille Lacadee, from the collective New-Territories.

It seems it will be a busy year for Huyghe, who will also exhibit a new commission on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York next spring (see Pierre Huyghe To Create Met’s Next Rooftop Installation).

What Will Happen will explore the stories and phenomena surrounding the Diavolezza glacier in the Alps, as well as the legendary she-devil from which the mountain takes its name. Generations of climbers have told stories of how La Diavolezza lured hunters to their death.

The two day trip will begin in the Swiss town of St Moritz, where a recommissioned Alpine train from the 1910s will take the participants on a journey towards the frozen lake of Lej Nair, at the top of the Bernina Pass.

The aim of the project is to raise awareness to climate change and the effect that human activity has on the environment, a subject which Huyghe is deeply engaged with (see Is Pierre Huyghe the World’s Most Opaque Popular Artist? Ben Davis Sizes Up His LACMA Show). Through the storytelling of La Diavolezza myth—which conjures ideas of death and disappearance—questions over the future of the vanishing glacier will be raised.

The project will result in a film by Huyghe and New-Territories, which will premiere next spring at the LUMA Foundation, in Arles (France.)