Olga Cafiero

Ephemeris, produced as part of the Vaud Photographic Survey, takes its point of departure from a singular object: the Almanach du Messager Boiteux (Almanac of the Limping Messenger), a Swiss publication first printed in 1707 and still in circulation today. Combining astrology, weather forecasts, agricultural advice and folk medicine, the almanac embodies forms of knowledge that predate scientific rationalism and have survived it.

The project investigates the persistent tension between popular belief and scientific authority. Working across multiple registers, Cafiero moves between meteorological instruments in Swiss research laboratories, anatomical wax casts, astrophotography made with a professional observatory, and AI-generated scenes staging forgotten superstitions. Each series functions as a layer of sedimented time, where the rational and the enchanted coexist without resolution.

Ephemeris resists the spectacular logic of contemporary image culture. Operating slowly and methodically, much like its eponymous limping messenger, the work proposes an alternative mode of attention: one that does not overwhelm, but holds contradictions open long enough to think through them.