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Full Description
When the most beautiful cows of the Appenzell villages are crowned in autumn,
smoke rises over the festival grounds. On this day, children—often still in their early
single-digit years—puff unabashedly on Krumme cigars, or Stumpen as they are
known locally, emblematic representatives of Swiss tobacco culture. They do so not
in secret or as an act of rebellion, but in the midst of the village community, which not
only tolerates the tradition but is also the very source of it. It is a gesture of
acknowledgment for the children who take on agricultural work and responsibilities
from an early age.
With his work Smoke, artist Kris Lüdi approaches the custom from a place of
personal memory. As a child, Lüdi spent his summers with his grandparents in
Appenzell and encountered the local children with the intimidated gaze of an outsider
of the same age. Their nonchalant, down-to-earth manner conveyed a sense of
meaning that resonated with him, and Smoke is his delayed response to that.
The result is a reflection on the progressive and conservative forces of the present,
on local customs and cultural practices, and their positioning between tradition and
modernity. Smoke ventures into the very heart of Switzerland. Folkloric tradition
becomes the starting point for a photographic observation that documents reality—
but does not claim to be a documentation. Instead, the portraits of smoking children
create a space of resonance that extends far beyond the canton's borders.
