An exhibition at the Maison de la Tête de Moine
There is a memory in wood that very few hands know how to read. The memory of the forest, of time, of altitude. The memory of people who learned to listen to the mountain before carving it.
Inaugurated at the Fête de la Tête de Moine 2026, the exhibition Our Mountains is now on display at the Maison de la Tête de Moine until the end of the year. An invitation to slow down, to look, and to feel.
Stefan & Daniel - Swiss Alpine Essence
Behind these three-dimensional mountain reliefs in solid wood are two Swiss craftspeople and one shared conviction: the mountain is not reproduced, it is summoned.
Stefan grew up where the Gantrisch traces the evening horizon. The mountain lives within him like an inner compass. A craftsman of the soul as much as of wood, he transforms every species into a landscape, every grain into a valley, every knot into a summit. "You don't carve the mountain. You give back what it gave you."
Daniel has chosen slowness, the slowness of drying wood, of the gouge following the grain, of the mountain revealing itself layer by layer. His reliefs don't reproduce the Alps: they conjure them, in all their silence and verticality. Each piece he creates is a conversation between craftsman and material, a wordless dialogue in which the massif takes shape beneath patient, passionate hands. "There is a memory in wood that very few hands know how to read."
Together, they founded Swiss Alpine Essence, a Swiss artisan house dedicated to creating handcrafted 3D reliefs in solid wood.
Why this exhibition feels at home here
Tête de Moine is a mountain cheese. A product that carries within it the land, the expertise, and the patience. The works of Stefan and Daniel speak the same language: that of people who work with raw materials, who respect what nature offers, and who transform the alpine pastures into something unique and enduring.
Our Mountains is the natural meeting of two exceptional crafts, cheese and wood, born from the same landscape.