The temporary exhibition “Women and the Alpine Pasture Season” at the World Nature Forum in Naters is devoted to the often barely visible role of women in the alpine farming of the Naters region. Women have always spent the summer on the alp with the younger children, tending the livestock and making cheese and butter, while the men made hay further down the mountain, irrigated the meadows or worked in the factory.
At its heart are photographs from the private albums of mountain farming families and the memories of women who lived through that time. The exhibition places the alpine pasture season, recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage since 2023, within the life and work of the mountain farming women of the Upper Valais, and uses one family’s example to show the “Firrerfahru”: a life spread across up to five places between valley and alp over the course of a year.
The exhibition is part of “Geschichten vom Berg” by the Lebendige Geschichte(n) association. Around 150 people came to the opening on 28 May 2026: Philipp Eyer and Jonas Scheu hosted the evening, the historian Elisabeth Joris spoke about the image of women in Valais, and the mountain farmers Pia and Livia Eggel, mother and daughter, talked about their work. On view until November 2026, the UN International Year of the Woman Farmer.