In spring, both the Wochenzeitung and the trade union newspaper Work ran the headlines โNo more Swissness" and โToblerone staff take action!โ At what is probably Switzerlandโs best-known choco- late manufacturer's โ owned since the 1990s by the US company Mondeleฬz International โ events were unfolding thick and fast. Amid plans to partly relocate production to Slovakia, Toblerone workers took to the streets in Bern to protest for better wages. As a result, Swiss chocolate โ whose characteristic prismatic shape, like the associated logo, is meant to evoke the alpine world, espe- cially the Matterhorn โ will lose its designation of origin (โSwiss Madeโ), strictly protected since 2017, and its stark iconicity. Both events deal a bitter blow to this (chocolatey) international Swiss success story.
However, what few people outside Switzerland know: the tank traps populating Switzerlandโs landscapes in large numbers are colloquially also called โTobleronesโ โ due to their pyramid-like shape, which is not entirely unlike the same-name chocolate. Offi- cially known as all-terrain tank obstacles, these barricades were erected mainly during World War II as defensive installations against a possible attack by the German army. Since the 1990s, however, they have ceased to have any military significance and instead have been put to civilian use. Some Toblerones will survive the passage of time as cultural heritage. One example is the โSenti- er des Toblerones,โ a 17-kilometer-long nature trail stretching from the foot of the Jura hills to Lake Geneva. In a series of smooth tran- sitions, the path leads into a wooded valley between moss-covered concrete humps and a rippling stream to detached houses con- cealed behind thuja hedges, down to the village of Gland, under the motorway bridge through agricultural land to the โDomaine Impeฬri- alโ golf course on Lac Leฬman.
The ethnographic-artistic research project โMaterialized Memories of (and in) Landscapeโ (2019โ2023), funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), investigates how the meaning of objects has evolved and continues to evolve since their previous military purpose has become obsolete. The project examines sce- nic, historical, and aesthetic transitions โ for example, when humps become part of private gardens, when tank traps create ecological value by serving as corridors for the endangered yellow-bellied toad, when concrete โtobleronesโ become part of childrenโs playgrounds, or are staged by artists as land art.
Both โ chocolate and tank traps โ thus become subject to open-ended meanings, thus also referring to their concomitant identity-forming narratives: on the one hand, the seal of quality lost through the relocation of chocolate manufacturing to Slovakia; on the other, the relics of the โAlpine fortressโ and the โspiritual de- fence of the nation,โ which are gradually being restaged by children, art and small animals and overwritten with new stories.