In Say Cheese! Harvest Salon examines Swiss national archival footage from the 1950s to the 1990s, showing how the image of alpine landscape was constructed to become an exploitable resource in the public perception. Through an essayistic exploration, these images are fragmented and recomposed to create a fictional space where the history of hydro-energy development intertwines with the industrialization of Swiss cheese production.
The film switches back and forth between the historical archival footage and two residents of Guttannen, Switzerland, who reenact a vanishing way of farming in the Alps. In doing so, the alpine landscape turns into a cinematic stage, on which the value of labor increasingly lies in its performative expression. Say Cheese! thereby questions the role of documentary film in shaping public support for nationally significant projects, and the extent to which it continues to reinforce a constructed image of the alpine landscape up to today.
Currently Say Cheese! is on display in the MAXXI museum in Rome as part of the exhibition Stop Drawing.