The resettlement of Brienz, a village in the canton of Graubünden endangered by a rockfall, reveals how such crises reinstate dominant narratives of traditional Alpine communities that obscure the structural conditions of Alpine transformation.

This Master’s thesis reflects on my filmmaking practice as a design tool and the development of the semi-fictional character Dorfgeist, the village ghost, to challenge those narratives. In conversation with residents the presence of the village ghost gets negotiated, bringing to the fore how new arrivals like it have historically transformed the village.

The Dorfgeist becomes a projection surface for permanent and temporary residents to reflect on what constitutes the community, while remaining in the tension between the image projected outwards and the lived reality on site.

Through sustained presence it questions how the image of an intact Alpine community is reinstated to trigger national solidarity mechanisms, bringing the reality beyond dominant narratives into view.