Forget Me Not

The picturesque landscape of East Switzerland is home to a diminishing number of Hänggiturme and Tröckneturme: peculiar yet monumental wooden towers once used for drying dyed textiles. These structures are remnants from the 19th century, when the region was a booming global centre of textile production. Once herself a textile designer in St. Gallen, Stéphanie Baechler decided to uncover the histories of these towers and the work they housed, as well as to re-invigorate their present through an artistic intervention. Forget Me Not catalogues a series of photographs of the remaining towers taken by Ladina Bischof in the form of an atlas, photographs that become the surface onto which Baechler’s research unfolds visually. Compiled of images, archival material, notes, anecdotes, correspondence, and commissioned texts, Forget Me Not is a non-hierarchical exploration of craftsmanship, an attempt to uncover almost-lost histories, and, above all, an ode to material in an increasingly dematerialised world.