‘RRR2—Outlaw Zones’ was built around the concept of “outlaws areas.” In 1966, Stewart Brand—the prominent environmentalist and founder of The Whole Earth Catalog renowned for his groundbreaking work on ecological sustainability and technology—described an outlaw area as “a geographical place where anything goes.” This is intended as a state of exception in the face of the imminent environmental catastrophes, where stable circumstances are thrown off and legal constructs renegotiated. It is precisely in these conditions that there lies a potential for radical territorial reimagining.

Florentin Aisslinger and Meghan Rolvien’s ‘Outlaw Zones–Bleached to White’ (2023) is a video project mapping the state of the Rhône glacier, situated in the Swiss Urner Alps of the Furka Pass, Valais. The largest glacier in the region, the Rhône is the only glacier worldwide that has been under private ownership for decades, making it a radical exception in the law justified by the historical use of the parcels of land and, therefore, an outlaw territory. ‘Outlaw Zones–Bleached to White’ portrays the Rhône glacier as a majestic and resigned creature, a manifestation of slow collapse, leaving us with a distorted sense of calm in a world that is bound for fast destruction, where what emerges is that geological reality and ownership necessitate a cultural shift.

Bringing the alpine landscape into the exhibition space, ‘Series of Sights’ (2023) is a unique collection of hand-casted aluminum hooks. Featuring fluid forms and rounded edges, the hooks resemble ponds, a memory of the melting glacier. Reflecting light in a manner akin to the dissolving ice found at its base, the hooks’ shapes enhance and celebrate aluminum’s properties, which inheres to the metal’s natural surface tension as it is casted.