Invited to photograph Switzerland’s traditional winter rites, French photographer Charles Fréger has produced images that reflect old customs while posing questions about the present-day. The thin layer of snow covering the ground in Teufen, eastern Switzerland, is slowly melting. It’s in winter, and specifically on the last night of the year, that this small Appenzeller town comes alive with archaic figures known as Silvesterchläuse. Dressed in fir branches or straw, some of them wearing demonic masks, these New Year figures move in groups from house to house and sing a peculiar, polyphonic “yodel” of resonant vowels and syllables. But that’s not all. Teufen is also known for traditions native to Romania. For a project he calls Charivari, renowned French photographer Charles Fréger captured images in Switzerland of carnivals and other traditional rituals designed to drive away the winter and evil spirits. These photographs, which can now be seen alongside images taken elsewhere ...
