Les Roches-de-Moron
Parc du Doubs
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Les Roches-de-Moron

Parc du Doubs

2018-2019

Parc natu­rel du Doubs – in this title a word reso­na­tes and evokes lon­gings and visi­ons: nature, a bound­less term with myriad mea­nings and its asso­cia­ti­ons, ran­ging from pro­xi­mity to para­dise via wil­der­ness to anxiety about the threa­te­ning loss of eve­r­y­thing natu­ral. Then there is also the word park – which once desi­gna­ted an area arti­fi­ci­ally arran­ged, plan­ted and cared for accor­ding to aes­the­tic ideas. The extent of our civi­li­za­tio­nal acti­vi­ties in the cen­tu­ries since the Baro­que era and its parks, can be easily judged by the fact that today the word is also used in reverse, s it were, namely, to desi­gnate a near-natu­ral area dis­tinct from our lar­gely cul­tu­rally-marked sur­roun­dings. But then what is this Parc natu­rel du Doubs? The pic­ture-essay exami­nes the cen­tu­ries-old cul­tu­ral lands­cape of the Swiss Jura Moun­tain region, rai­sing ques­ti­ons about the cor­re­spon­dence bet­ween rail­ways and roads, sett­le­ments, farms or indus­trial sites and our ideas of an idea­li­zed, near-natu­ral lands­cape. The pro­ject was car­ried out in the fra­me­work of a resi­dence pro­gramme of the Musée des beaux-arts le Locle and the Parc natu­rel du Doubs.