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SNAKE ON GLACIER
Media release January 28th, 2025
Blocking period until January 28th, 2025, 21.00h CET (Central European Time)
For publication January 29th, 2025 - New Year Chinese zodiac sign “Snake”
“Tiger Python on Glacier”
Light artwork for the Year of the Snake
Switzerland is celebrating the Chinese Year of the Snake with a gigantic work of art: Swiss light artist Gerry Hofstetter is projecting a giant tiger python onto the north face of Piz Palü and the Pers Glacier in the Bernina massif in the Engadin in Pontresina, Switzerland.
January 29th, 2025 marks the beginning of the Year of the Snake in Asia, a zodiac sign of the Chinese horoscope. Switzerland congratulates the new year with the projection of a 3.5 km long and over 500 m wide Burmese tiger python onto the north face of Piz Palü and the Pers Glacier by Swiss light artist Gerry Hofstetter.
It symbolizes the glaciers and Switzerland's international ties.
Switzerland and China are also celebrating 75 years of diplomatic friendship this year.
The idea came to the artist when he was studying the shapes of glaciers for a project that he will realize in the UN Year of Glaciers’ Preservation in 2025. He realized that the glaciers wind their way down from the mountains through the valleys like snakes. Just as the tiger python is a protected animal, the glaciers must also be protected. The combination of projecting a snake in the Year of the Snake onto a glacier in the Year of Glaciers’ Preservation is intended to express the need to protect the animals as well as environment. In about 70 years, the average lifetime of a human being, 80% of the glaciers in the Alps will have disappeared and a critical mass of glaciers worldwide will have melted.
Gerry Hofstetter deliberately chose the Pers Glacier in the Engadin for the projection of the snake. Pers is a Rhaeto-Romanic word meaning “lost”.
The Burmese tiger python lives in tropical Southeast Asia and is on the IUCN Red List.
This light art work was supported locally by Corvatsch Bergbahnen, the Diavolezza mountain station, the municipality of Pontresina and art philanthropists from Switzerland and abroad.
Gerry Hofstetter is a Swiss light artist and filmmaker who works all over the world. With his projections, he knows how to convey nature, messages and themes spectacularly, sensitively, quietly and sometimes with a twinkle in his eye. With his light art illuminations, he is also committed to the climate and a good future for people, animals and nature on our planet.
His well-known projects include the illuminations of icebergs in the Arctic and Antarctic, the Matterhorn in Zermatt in March 2020 during the global lockdown due to COVID-19 as an act of solidarity for the whole world. He is also the creator of the world's largest work of art - Tiger on Eiger. A projection of a 5.3 km long tiger on the north face of the Eiger in Switzerland for the Chinese Year of the Tiger on February 1, 2022 and the opening of the Winter Olympics in China in Beijing.
Profile / Technical details Action
Title Image: Tiger Python on Glacier
Location: Piz Palu and Persgletscher, Pontresina, Switzerland
Art Work: Light art projection of a Burmese tiger python on the north face of Piz Palu 3,900 meters (12’800 ft) above sea level and the Pers Glacier.
Reason: For the Chinese Year of the Snake, starting January 29, 2025.
A gift from Switzerland to the Asian world.
For 75 years of diplomatic friendship between China and Switzerland.
To protect the tiger python.
To protect the glaciers. 2025 is also the UN Year of Glaciers’ Preservation.
Date of projection: January 21st, 2025
Distance of the projection: 3.9 km
Size of the snake: 3.5 km (11’500 ft) long and 500 m (1’700 ft) wide
Realization and copyright: Swiss light artist Gerry Hofstetter
Photographer: Mike Kessler
For the buyer of this picture:
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The artist will deliver in person the picture to any place in the world where the buyer of the artwork would like to have it delivered.
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The buyer will receive a film trailer about the making of the realization of the artwork.
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The buyer will receive a book about the making of the realization of the artwork.
The buyer of this artwork of Gerry Hofstetter has the following options to pay
A He buys it direct from the artist, no gallery involved.
B He can donate the price of the artwork to the “World Art Association”. The World Art Association WAA is a Swiss Association based in Zurich. The Association is as charity organisation which funds projects in art, culture, and films for a better world. WAA is tax-exempted by the State of Zurich. The buyer will receive a donation confirmation.