Under the professional guidance of Barbara Keusch, I have been researching the flora of the Swiss Alps since 2023.
Barbara Keusch is a highly experienced mountain climber and botanist. Born and raised in the Swiss Alps, she has developed an exceptional knowledge of the mountain landscape—its dangers and beauties—as well as the treasures hidden within the smallest forms of life found at elevations above 2,000 meters.
Barbara shares her expertise with the team at the herbal garden of the monastery in Dornach. I was fortunate to meet her for the first time in 2022 while staying in Dornach as a resident artist.
The first herbarium we created together that year is a collection of selected culinary herbs and common plants from the garden and the surrouding of Dornach. Barbara’s writings, drawn from her extensive botanical knowledge and family traditions passed down through generations, are accompanied by watercolors that I painted during my stay in Dornach.
In June 2023, we went on our first mountain trip together and explored the land of Ober/Unterengadin in the Swiss Alps.
hortus siccus I naturalia (Ober/Unterengadin)
hortus siccus I (ober/unterengadin) was completed with the herbarium specimens, texts by Barbara Keusch, and watercolors from my hand in September 2024. during the residency ‘Time Out’ at the monastery Dornach (October 2024), we spread out all the pages and viewed this first chapter together.
some text extracts by Barbara Keusch
some watercolors (the copies)
meeting, research exchange and short check up in the monastry garden (october 2024)
23 june – 27 june 2024
hortus siccus II
Barbara Keusch arranged our second research stay in the Wallis region. The alpine atmosphere, with its present roughness of stone deserts, is very different from the Engadin area. Our stay was delayed by massive floods caused by an unprecedentedly strong thunderstorm that hit this canton on the day we packed our bags. Infrastructural systems were completely blocked and/or destroyed, leading to major damage to the local human and animal populations, as well as changes in natural waterways and the interconnectedness of forest functions.
Our hikes took us to regions at 2,650 meters elevation, where we encountered ancient glacier traces and a vast, prehistoric stone-shaped landscape. Amidst this plain and seemingly infertile terrain, we discovered tiny floral life, growing millimeters high on the ground. The presence of 4,000-meter-high mountains surrounding us made the origin of the Earth feel very present, while human life seemed rather insignificant. At the same time, the extensively discussed phenomenon of ‘awe’ touched all our senses and evoked a feeling of humbleness.
hortus siccus II features a collection of 13 alpine flowers, hand-painted with texts describing their origin, habitat, and significance for the human ‘condition’ in areas situated between 1,500 and 2,000 meters above sea level.
some text extracts by Barbara Keusch
a couple of watercolors (the copies)
13 july – 19 july 2025
hortus siccus III -Wiler, Lötschental/CH
After a natural disaster, the village of Blatten was almost entirely devastated on May 28, 2025. A landslide triggered by a glacier collapse buried and destroyed large parts of the village. Blatten is the northernmost settlement in this valley, surrounded by a massive Alpine landscape with peaks rising to nearly 4,000 meters, the Bietschhorn being one of the most prominent.
When we arrived in Wiler, the view toward the disaster area revealed a vast layer of grey debris. For someone who had known the region before the event, the scene felt almost apocalyptic. To me, the sight was reminiscent of the retreating Morteratsch Glacier we had seen in 2023—yet on an entirely different scale. Still, it was closely connected to the same underlying forces: climate change and the melting of permafrost in the Alpine region.
Army helicopters flew soldiers into the area for investigation. Every morning and evening, as we set out for our excursions and returned to the cabin, we were confronted with this new reality, one that lent the scenery a slightly bitter undertone. The quietness—broken only by the sound of helicopters—spoke of a profound shift currently affecting nature and all living elements. It is difficult to capture the memory of other people’s experiences in words, but simply listening to the wind and walking through the silent streets of the village evoked a distinctly unsettling feeling.
Despite this, we continued our research tours and once again encountered astonishing floral species, documenting several of them for the archive. As we were staying in a private cabin, we were able to prepare dinners using findings from our daily tours, such as nettle, clover, strawberries, leek, and other plants. Guide and botanist, Barbara Keusch, was particularly affected this time, as she associates this region with many family visits and memories from her early childhood.
hortus siccus – flora of the alpine mountains 1:26
11 july – 17 july 2026
hortus siccus IV
For the third Alpine exploration and research journey of the Hortus Siccus project, focusing on the flora of regions around 2,000 meters above sea level, Barbara suggested the Val Müstair. This remarkable valley, surrounded by the majestic peaks of the Italian Gruppo dell’Ortles, lies at the easternmost edge of Switzerland.
Barbara chose this particular region because of our shared fascination with the Swiss stone pine (Arve) and our concern for the fragility of the herbarium collections. The idea emerged to collaborate with a local carpenter to create handcrafted wooden boxes that would protect the delicate horti sicci. Made from centuries-old Swiss stone pine harvested in the region, these boxes would become an integral part of the work itself. Several forests in Graubünden are home to these remarkable ancient trees, whose fragrant wood carries the character of the Alpine landscape.
The summer proved to be one of the hottest ever recorded in Switzerland. Spending our days at elevations between 1,800 and 2,800 meters brought temperatures almost 20°C cooler than in the valleys below, creating ideal conditions for long hikes and allowing a rich diversity of Alpine plants to flourish during this brief growing season.
The collection from this expedition is filled with astonishing structures and colours. It includes plants celebrated for their remarkable medicinal properties, alongside species whose beauty conceals their poisonous nature when consumed in excessive amounts. Once again, I found myself spending much of the journey in silence, overwhelmed by the beauty unfolding around us. Once again, scale was placed in relation to the human perspective.
For the first time, I was able to sketch outdoors using sea buckthorn (Sanddorn) extract mixed with water during our breaks between hikes that often lasted five to nine hours. Another striking observation was that all flora and fauna seemed to be affected by higher temperatures than the average ‘normal’, the earth being extremely dry.
The presentation and conversation with Barbara Keusch, moderated by Barbara van der Meulen, was a moment of pure joy. Thanks to the engaged audience, we had deep and inspiring conversations around themes such as preservation, biodiversity, and the changing flora caused by climate change—not only in the Alps.
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who attended the evening, to both Barbaras, and to Kloster Dornach for their generous financial support.
