The Glacier is a Being: Collaboration of Swiss Photographer Julian Stettler and IDK member Anne-Sophie Balzer

Swiss photographer Julian Stettler travels to twelve Swiss glaciers, approaching them as living beings and as active protagonists in the entangled web of life. His beautiful photobook The Glacier is a Being is the work of a true cryophiliac, and I was over the moon when he commissioned me to write an essay that would be published alongside his pictures. I said, “Yes, but only if you take me along on one of your glacial encounters”.

Julian is a deeply curious person and deeply informed by reading Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, other material ecocritics. In The Glacier is a Being he examines the manifold ways of glacial expression, their diverse shapes and colors, and profoundly different identities and sets of behavior. Julian’s gaze is almost Zen-like. Eye and camera are all-open presence, resting in total awareness.

After our first trip to Findel Glacier opposite the mighty Matterhorn, we went for a second time, working on one of my own artistic projects. I’m immensely grateful for the wonderful ways our shared conversations, observations and musings on top of the glacier has informed my own work and deeper understanding of our relationship to the cryosphere and the more than human world at large.

The main part of Julian’s book contains 90 abstract glacier photographs, as well as a 14-page poem by poet, artist and writer  Daniela Naomi Molnar. In addition, three texts by Gian-Luca Kämpfen (landscape architect), David Touchette (microbiologist) and myself are part of the book.

The photographs were taken between 2021 and 2023  on twelve Swiss glaciers.

The book launch happened in December 2023 in Luzern, when Julian, Daniela (via Zoom), Gian-Luca, myself and guests of the opening feasted on home-made Focaccia, and listened to short readings of all the contributors to the book. Glaciers really do bring people together.

– by Anne-Sophie Balzer

Julian Stettler: THE GLACIER IS A BEING
ISBN 978-3-906822-51-8
220mm x 297mm
bound, with folded wrap-around cover
144 pages
90 images
designed by Alessia Meyer

Link to Sturm & Drank Publisher: https://sturmanddrang.net/products/julian-stettler-the-glacier-is-a-being

Link to Julian’s Website: https://www.julianstettler.ch/

Link to Anne-Sophie Balzer’s website: www.annesophiebalzer.com