There is an undeniable allure to places where human ambition collides with the formidable power of nature, creating a landscape at once magnificent and unsettling. It is a sensation I have often felt when encountering the vast, silent giants of infrastructure, each echoing a unique story of ingenuity, necessity, and inevitable consequence. The profound resonance with landscapes that bear the scars and triumphs of human intervention is precisely what drew me into Beatrice Gorelli and Keiichi Kitayama’s truly captivating photobook, “Hydroelectric Sublime,” from the esteemed Lars Müller Publishers. This is not a casual flick through, it is a meticulous journey into the heart of the Emosson region in the Swiss Valais, an odyssey that peeled back layers of a land reshaped, revealing a complex, often paradoxical, bond between humanity, energy, and the very essence of water.

The book’s genesis, a serendipitous exploration by Gorelli and Kitayama that began with photographing the quaint village of Finhaut, speaks to the organic unfolding of many powerful artistic endeavours. What started as a casual engagement with a region blossomed into a three-year quest, undoubtedly spurred by the looming energy crisis Europe faced during the Russo-Ukrainian War. The sheer urgency of that winter, with its widespread fear of blackouts and heating shortages, lends a visceral undercurrent to their work, transforming a photographic study into a vital dialogue about our dependence on such monumental feats of engineering. Kitayama’s initial “face to face” encounter with the dam left him “moved and overwhelmed” by its “huge structure and architecture.” That immediate almost childlike awe is perfectly captured throughout the book, as they navigate the breathtaking Alpine terrain, from enveloping vistas of sublime nature to the concealed industrial interiors of the power plant, nestled 600 metres below ground.

This sense of deeply personal connection, which I always find so vital in any creative work, is powerfully echoed in the human stories woven through “Hydroelectric Sublime.” We hear of Bruno Gay des Combes, whose grandfather, having returned from France to Switzerland in 1928, found work at the Barberine dam unexpectedly unavailable. Yet, undeterred, he settled in Finhaut, building a life as a farmer and hotel porter. This small decision, born of necessity, cascaded through generations, his son helped construct the Emosson dam, and Bruno himself found a career spanning forty-one years at Emosson SA, his dedication lasting until his retirement in 2022. He speaks with genuine affection for the dam, finding it “beautiful” and “impressive,” like a “giant holding back water.” This familial legacy, rooted in the very ground where these colossal structures stand, brings a potent authenticity to the philosophical undercurrents of the book. The Barberine dam still standing today, a silent sentinel, reminds us of the winding, unforeseen paths our lives can take, shaped by individual resilience and the relentless march of progress.

What truly resonated with me was Gorelli and Kitayama’s discerning eye for the subtle interplay between the natural and the manmade. They do not shy away from the immense, unchanging grey structures of the dams, instead embracing their smooth concrete surfaces and graceful lines. Kitayama poses a deeply philosophical question about the harmony of such a scene, does it stem from the dam’s unchanging presence against the ever-shifting mountains, or the towering peaks casting their shadow over the smaller, human made edifice? For him, the true beauty lies in how well architecture integrates with its natural surroundings. This contemplative stance, evident in every frame, moves the book beyond a simple documentation of a grand engineering feat. It becomes a meditation on identity, belonging, and the relentless march of time, prompting one to consider the broader implications of humanity’s indelible mark upon the Earth. Indeed, as a passage from the book profoundly notes, “It is a rare instance when a constructed object is in itself an expression of nature’s forces that it is designed to tame.”

The vocabulary used to describe hydroelectric dams is wonderfully rich and extensive. From “water tower” and “electric cathedral” to “landscape machine” and “concrete monster,” these metaphors, as the book details, reveal a complex symbolism. They embody “modern hubris,” by their construction in challenging environments, disrupting village societies, while also celebrating humanity’s power to dominate nature and commemorating the efforts and tragedies involved. For a twenty first century observer like me, accustomed to the invisible networks that permeate our daily lives, it is fascinating to consider how these expressions, traditionally focused on the architecture, now seem to neglect the dam’s broader, networked nature. The Emosson complex, as Nicolas Nova explains, is a “large technical system,” a complex interlacing that operates on multiple geographical scales – from local tunnels and cavities to regional electricity grids and far-flung territories. This vast, often invisible network, encompassing nearly 40 kilometres of galleries collecting water from 176 square kilometres, forms what Peter Haff calls the “technosphere,” a physical part of our environment profoundly affected by human modification, marking our current geological epoch, the Anthropocene.

The specific images that truly brought this complex narrative to life for me are deeply personal, resonating with a profound understanding of time and the delicate balance between the human and the wild. First, there’s a truly powerful pair of photographs, a single story told across seasons. The initial shot reveals a small, red and white striped shed like building nestled precariously on a mountain edge. In this rendition, it’s surrounded by the vibrant greens of summer bushes, the earthy browns of mud, and the stoic greys of stone. Then, the accompanying image captures the exact same scene in the unyielding grip of winter. Here, the entire frame is consumed by a blanket of pristine, almost blinding white, with only half of that distinctive red and white building valiantly popping through the snow. This stark visual journey from the abundant life of summer to the overwhelming, silent embrace of winter is nothing short of masterful. It speaks to the relentless cycle of nature, the sheer resilience of these structures, and the lives lived within their sight, enduring through every shift in the year. It’s a poignant reminder of how intimately connected life in these landscapes is to the seasons, a tangible representation of impermanence and endurance.

Another image that truly captured my gaze was a view from above a building, looking down past a slated roof. The details here are exquisite, moss pushing its way through the slate cracks, a testament to time and natural growth. Beyond the roof, the ground is a rough mix of soil and rubble, and then, strikingly, there’s a bathtub, filled with dirty water, seemingly abandoned to the elements. Past this unexpected human trace, another hill slopes down, leading the eye into a dense expanse of trees. This photograph, with its intimate focus on the detritus of human presence set against the wildness of nature, speaks volumes about the constant interplay between our footprint and the untamed world. It’s a quiet, melancholic observation, hinting at stories untold and lives lived amidst this rugged beauty. The presence of the bathtub, overflowing with the very essence of the landscape’s seasons, adds a layer of raw, unvarnished reality to the stunning vistas, reminding us of the human struggle and simple moments amidst the monumental.

Being from the Northeast of Aberdeen in Scotland, where I can see the peaks of the Cairngorms from my house, I felt an immediate kinship with a photograph of a hill type mountain range, shot from the bottom looking up, entirely covered in snow. The sky above is a glorious blue, and the light suggests the very beginning of day, a fresh start, perhaps with that crisp, chill air that only true mountain mornings possess. This image, with its majestic, snow draped peaks reaching for the heavens, evokes that profound sense of scale and natural power that I know so well from my own Scottish mountains. It’s the kind of view that settles the soul, a reminder of the raw, untouched beauty of our planet and the awe it inspires, a vast, silent testament to forces far beyond our comprehension. Then, there’s a close up shot of the side of a mountain, a seemingly simple shot of rock and stone. To many, it might appear unassuming, but I find it deeply affecting. When you consider the sheer amount of time this rock has witnessed, the geological epochs, the shifting climates, the countless sunrises and sunsets it has absorbed, it’s nothing short of mind boggling. This image is a quiet contemplation on impermanence and the vastness of time, making you feel the very pulse of the Earth beneath your fingertips, a profound connection to the ancient, enduring heart of the landscape.

The philosophical threads woven through “Hydroelectric Sublime” are as deep and intricate as the valleys themselves. Pietro Metastasio’s words, “The Earth, the Sea, the Spheres Speak of your power,” set a tone of vastness, while Friederike Brun’s poem, “Chamonix at Sunrise,” tremblingly beholds the “summit of eternity,” with the profound refrain, “Jehovah! Jehovah! it cracks in the bursting ice.” This sense of awe, of something “enormous and terrible, far beyond the human scale,” is the very essence of the “sublime,” as described by eighteenth-century Grand Tourists and later by Immanuel Kant. While Kant spoke of nature’s “inaccessibility,” this book powerfully illustrates how civil engineering has “accessed, divided, and exploited” these Alpine landscapes. The discussion extends to contemporary environmental ethics, moving beyond a simple pro-con dichotomy to acknowledge the complex intertwining of natural and artificial factors, demanding a “pluralistic judgment.”

Bruno Boulicaut, the CEO of Electricize d’Emosson SA, provides a fascinating perspective, his childhood fascination with water mills leading him to a career in hydroelectricity. He stresses the “flexibility and reactivity” of hydropower, comparing it to a quickly accelerating car, vital for energy security amidst geopolitical tensions and global instability. His pride in contributing to Switzerland’s decarbonisation efforts is palpable, yet he also voices the inherent tension, balancing energy needs with the preservation of nature. The future looms large in these conversations, with the poignant reality of melting glaciers, the source for the Emosson dam, potentially disappearing within the next century. This poses an ambivalent challenge, accelerated ice melting provides more water for production now yet foreshadows a devastating future. The book compellingly asks if future generations will view these dams as symbols of human achievement or “abandoned relics,” tinged with the sadness of a world and water lost.

Gorelli and Kitayama, through their photography, embraced a “meditative rhythm,” allowing emotions and memories to infuse their fragile negatives as they traversed seasons, from fields buzzing with bees to navigating avalanches. They ponder the dam’s beginning and end, realising these are “relative concepts, dependent on our point of view.” In frigid nights, near the basin, they describe hearing “occasional sounds of ice breaking on the dam lake, accompanied by extraterrestrial echoes from the depths of the dam,” absorbed by the blanket of snow. This raw, sensory experience permeates the book, reminding us that an “untouched nature” in the Alps is largely an illusion, a landscape surveyed and altered, now a popular tourist destination. Yet, in this age of climate change, the ethical burden of our aesthetic enjoyment weighs heavily. When the water depletes, and humans are gone, the concrete structures may remain, “relics that retain traces of the human activity,” but without anyone present to contemplate or give them meaning, nature may again assert its “inaccessibility.”

“Hydroelectric Sublime” is a profound exploration of human ingenuity, environmental impact, and the delicate balance we strive to maintain with the natural world. It is a work that not only documents but deeply interrogates, leaving the reader with a heightened sense of responsibility and a poignant awareness of time’s relentless passage. This book is a tangible symbol of human resilience, a “pyramid in the Swiss Alps,” but it is also a sober look at the profound contradictions of our modern world. It is a testament to the power of photography to inspire both awe and urgent contemplation, a truly essential addition to any photobook collection.

Regards

Alex