Whose Landscape: The Alps Between Nation and Planet

Whose Landscape: The Alps Between Nation and Planet

Join us at Swissnex for a conversation on ownership, representation, and the image of the Alps, followed by a guided tour of On Location: Drawing the Outdoors at the Harvard Art Museums.

Presented in conjunction with the Harvard Art Museums exhibition On Location: Drawing the Outdoors (September 18, 2026–January 17, 2027), this event explores how the image and meaning of the Alps have been shaped across cultures, institutions, and time.

The image of the Swiss Alps has never been shaped by Switzerland alone. Foreign Romantics—including Turner, Ruskin, and Byron—helped construct the mythology that still surrounds the Alpine landscape today.

Two hundred and fifty years later, that same landscape can be understood on a much larger scale: as part of a planetary system of glaciers, biodiversity corridors, and atmospheric records that extend far beyond national borders. So who has ever really owned the image of the Alps? And what role do cultural institutions—from museums and embassies to organizations like Swissnex—play in navigating the space between national identity and planetary responsibility?

Through conversation and art, the afternoon invites us to reconsider the Alps not simply as a symbol of Switzerland, but as a landscape whose meaning, image, and future are shared.