1982
A declaration in Kathmandu
Ten recommendations called for less waste, protected wildlife, respected local cultures, and mountains kept intact for future generations.
A public history project · Switzerland and Nepal · 2026 to 2028
Back to Kathmandu
The mountains warned us forty years ago. Are we ready to listen?
In 1982, the Kathmandu Declaration warned of waste, overtourism, and pressure on high-altitude communities. This project returns to that warning through film, archives, and voices from Switzerland and Nepal.
Why now
The warning was already here.
A pioneering declaration asked mountaineers to protect fragile landscapes and respect the people who live within them. Its questions have only become more urgent.
TODAY
A mountain under pressure
High-altitude tourism now brings pollution, saturated infrastructure, ecological strain, and sharper tensions between visitors, authorities, and local communities.
A mountain is not only a summit to reach. It is a territory to hear, smell, remember, and inhabit.
The project
One story, two public experiences.
Back to Kathmandu brings historical research into public life through a documentary and a travelling installation developed with mountain communities and cultural institutions.
01 · Documentary
A 52-minute journey from Geneva to the Himalaya
Archives, field footage, and testimony from guides, porters, researchers, and environmental actors trace the Declaration's origins, its blind spots, and its unfinished legacy.
02 · Travelling installation
An archive the public can enter
Images, sound, oral histories, and interactive questions invite visitors to examine the tension between mountain protection and exploitation in Switzerland, Nepal, and beyond.
The journey
Research made visible as it happens.
The project will share its progress, encounters, and discoveries from the first workshops to the final screenings and exhibitions.
- 01
2026
Listen and gather
Workshops, archives, and conversations with mountain associations, museums, researchers, and communities in Switzerland and Nepal.
- 02
2027
Film and co-create
Filming in Nepal, documentary production, collective review, and development of the interactive installation.
- 03
2028
Share and discuss
Museum openings, guided visits, school activities, festival screenings, public debates, and long-term circulation.
Academic connection
History as a tool for seeing differently.
The project grows from research on the globalisation of the Alps and connects environmental history with sensory history and public dialogue.
Environmental history
How tourism, institutions, and international networks shaped the protection and exploitation of mountain landscapes.
Sensory history
How thresholds of noise, smell, cleanliness, beauty, and disturbance change what societies accept or refuse to see.
Public history
How archives and research can become shared experiences that invite reflection, disagreement, and practical change.
A shared project
Built across mountain communities.
Researchers, guides, museums, environmental organizations, filmmakers, and cultural venues are creating the project together.
Research and cultural partners in Switzerland
University of Fribourg · University of Lausanne and CIRM · UniDistance Suisse · Conexkt · ALPS Museum · La Prod · Swiss Alpine Club · Swiss Mountain Guide Association · Mountain Wilderness · Summit Foundation · Médiathèque Valais
Research and cultural partners in Nepal
Tribhuvan University · Nepal Mountaineering Association · International Mountain Museum, Pokhara · Guides, porters, researchers, and local environmental actors
International mountain and museum networks
International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation · International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations · International Mountain Museum Alliance · Mountain film festivals
Field notes
Follow the journey back to Kathmandu.
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