The Feminist Alpine Club (FAC) is an artistic project that engages critically in alpine and artistic contexts from an intersectional feminist perspective. The terrain of the Alps requires particular knowledge and specific physical techniques. The corporeal experience of mountaineering is a key to (self-)empowerment, which can be carried from the mountain into the valley and made productive in everyday life. The FAC is about experiencing the mountain collectively and thus changing perspective. Alpinism is understood as a cultural practice and a broad social phenomenon – climbing peaks with ice axes and crampons is just the tip of the iceberg. FAC wants to crack open alpinism, which is a privileged space based on many exclusions, not only those of gender, but also of class, race, cultural background, place of residence, physical and psychological abilities.
The Feminist Alpine Club was created by the Swiss artist Martina-Sofie Wildberger in 2017. In Summer 2023, the curator Josiane Imhasly invited Wildberger to participate in two of her exhibition projects in the Valais (Zur frohen Aussicht and Lemme) and suggested a FAC-residency on the adjoining Furkapass as an extension of these projects. They invited the artists, writers and theorists Ruth Amstutz, Lika Nüssli, Veronika Spierenburg and Larissa Tiki Mbassi to experience a week on an alpine passage with them.
The residency on Furkapass was organized by in:dépendance / eth furka zone, a project initiated by Chair for Architecture and Attitude Prof. Jan De Vylder, ETH Zurich.
