TEMPORARY EXHIBITION

 

The Sunday outing

12 JUNE 2022 - 30 SEPTEMBER 2023

The automobile belongs to 20th century leisure society like the Tremola to the Gotthard.

 
 

At first, only a few 'gentleman drivers' could afford a motorised carriage, but with the industrial production of utility cars the car took on a more democratic character and gradually became a mass phenomenon that would permanently change the way the post-war generation approached leisure time. The car guarantees individual freedom, generates new experiences and creates an irrepressible desire for mobility. The Gotthard Pass is the best example and scenario of this development. Even today, some 600,000 people cross the pass every season (June to October). The majority do so on four wheels.

The new temporary exhibition dispenses almost entirely with the use of texts and warms the hearts with amateur films from the Canton of Ticino. The temporary exhibition is in four languages, Italian, German, French and English.

 

Private films from the canton of Ticino
The heart of the exhibition consists of amateur films from the 1920s to the 1980s. They show the radiant side of the automotive 20th century: the Sunday outing, the picnic on top of mountain passes, the holiday trips to the South in a Volkswagen Beetle. Anyone looking at these emotionally charged images today realises that they convey a temporary happiness and that the quest for climate-friendly mobility is only just beginning.

Most of the films come from private collections in the Canton of Ticino, are shot in 16 mm, 8 mm, in black and white or in the bright colours of Super 8, and were collected and archived by the Swiss Radio and Television company RSI. For the exhibition, Zurich-based filmmaker Marcel Ramsay edited the footage to create a new panorama. The collage is based on a montage made in 2002 for the exhibition 'Autolust' (Desire for a Car) by the Stapferhaus in Lenzburg.

 
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The first branch of the Swiss Alpine Museum in Ticino

 

With the temporary exhibition space, the Swiss Alpine Museum opens a permanent branch on the Gotthard for the first time. The cooperation provides for exhibitions on the Gotthard to be created together with regional partners from the cantons of Uri and Ticino. The Swiss Alpine Museum thus fulfils its national mandate as the federal government's point of reference for Alpine cultural heritage. In turn, the Museo Nazionale del San Gottardo sees the collaboration as an opportunity to offer interesting temporary exhibitions that attract a loyal audience. The opening project, 'The Sunday Outing', shows amateur films shot mostly in Ticino and on the Gotthard, which concern car journeys and excursions over the pass from the 1920s to the 1980s. Most of the material comes from the archives of the Ticino broadcast of RSI.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Swiss Alpine Museum

alps Foundation - Swiss Alpine Museum
Gianna Luzio (President)

Production Management
Beat Hächler

Communication / Marketing
Beatrice Häusler