Elevated Art

“What is the point of creating something that hardly anyone will ever see? What is the point of installing a work of art high up on a mountain instead of in a museum? When I first heard about SMACH, it was these questions that immediately came to me. I am passionate about spending time in the mountains and so there was another thought: ‘Does such a breathtaking natural backdrop really need to be enriched with art? Aren’t the mountains beautiful enough?’ I would often hear these arguments later, while working on the film.

The first meeting with Michael Moling focused my interest on another aspect. I experienced a person with enormous stamina who stuck to a project that others would probably have given up on long ago. My basic question was: ‘To what extent is it worth fighting for a region’s culture if a large part of its inhabitants doesn’t understand the culture or has no interest in it?” My aim was to make a film about the motivation of a person who defies all headwinds and places sculptures on mountains. I wanted to find out whether he is really doing this in the spirit of his homeland and culture, or whether he is mainly concerned with the survival of his pet project.”

Timian Hopf