Transformation processes are the focus of Georg Aerni’s new photographs. The Swiss photographer and artist shows plastic greenhouses that have annexed whole swathes of land for agricultural mass production, residential houses that have been built overnight on the city outskirts without construction machines and literally noiselessly. He points his lens at olive trees that have grown over centuries into figures full of character, at creepers that conquer leftover spaces between high-rises and motorways, and at mighty rock faces that are being gnawed by erosion. With the merging of art and documentation that is typical of Aerni’s work, Georg Aerni—Silent Transition makes the signs of change the object of a contemplative observation and at the same time asks challenging questions: about our handling of natural resources, about the social backgrounds to cities growing out of control, about the regenerative force of nature.

A decade after Aerni’s first monograph, Sites & Signs, this new book showcases the artist’s ongoing continuation of his photographic work through numerous individual images as well as new series. 166 beautiful colour and black-and-white plates are introduced through texts by Peter Pfrunder and Nadine Olonetzky and commented on with an essay by Sabine von Fischer.

Text in English and German.

Georg Aerni, born 1959, graduated in architecture from ETH Zürich and has been working as a freelance photographer since 1992. He is based in Zurich.

Peter Pfrunder is director of Fotostiftung Schweiz in Winterthur.

Nadine Olonetzky is a Zurich-based writer and an editor of photography books with Scheidegger & Spiess.