Unstable Ground: Landslides, Lives and Perspectives

“Landscapes don’t take potshots at you,” said Erich M. Remarque. And he wasn’t quite right. Often unstable ground has the power to intervene in diverse forms of human, but also non-human life, and to intersect, redirect, or allow new paths. Landslides give visibility to the liveliness, historicity and permanent mobility of the Earth’s surface and what happens beneath the surface, which often remains invisible to the human eye—whether. Due to their common appearance, persistence and often fatality with which they enter the human world, slope movements have been and are being understood according to contemporary and local religious, economic, environmental or political contexts, and are perceived and interpreted accordingly; such as challenges, given things, messages, problems, risks, punishments, trials, parts of stories, etc.

The exhibition Unstable Ground provides an insight into the four contours of the social and natural life of the landslide, which form the individual parts of the exhibition. The Modern Knowledge section captures the anatomy of the landslide from the perspective of geology, as well as it reveals moments from the history of the formation of this scientific discipline. The part Real Estate Agency Reality offers a basic reorientation of the view and experience of man in the world, which are necessary for coexistence with landslides if one is to minimize damages. The Restlessness section represents the landslide as a rebellious element, whose unstable ground has the power to destabilize the scientific, administrative or anthropocentric certainties of modern people and their world. And last but not least, the Life in the Cracks of the Earth section presents contours of the life despite the landslide on the example of the village Maršov in the Uherský Brod region.

The exhibition Unstable Ground: Landslides, Lives, and Perspectives, has been prepared by Bob Kuřík, Vojtěch Pecka, Pavel Sterec, Jan Klimeš, and Jiří Suchánek, is the output of the research program Natural Threats of the AV21 Strategy and its topic Landscape Care in the Prevention of Dangerous Natural Phenomena: Historical, Legal and Social Dimensions led by Hana Müllerová, J.D., PhD.