Erosion

The online exhibition Erosion, prepared by Nikola Brabcová and Karin Šrubařová, is conceived as a web platform leading to the visibility of the problem of soil erosion and its possible solutions. At the same time, it is an effort to transcend the imaginary dichotomy of man and nature and to highlight the growing initiative of artists expressing themselves on soil health and related issues. The prevalence of yield-oriented agriculture, the long-term use of agrochemicals, heavy machinery and poor management of soil, which is so prone to erosion and further degradation, are causing irreversible changes in the landscape. Although experts (scientists, artists and others) and the active public are calling for a systemic turn towards more environmentally friendly farming, the legislature and government officials remain indifferent to these calls.

In Iceland, severe soil erosion began to occur immediately after its first settlement, which brought with it the clearing and burning of forests and further erosion of the land’s vegetation cover. The growing population is putting increasing pressure on the exploitation of an already fragile ecosystem. Today, Icelanders consider soil erosion to be one of their country's biggest problems and are trying to address the situation. Since 1907, the land has been protected by the Forestry and Erosion Prevention Act, and a state organisation, the Soil Conservation Society, has been set up to reclaim exposed or damaged areas and protect existing natural vegetation.

During the preparation and implementation of the online exhibition, we will discuss the current state of soil erosion, its causes and consequences in the Czech Republic and Iceland, the possibilities of soil protection or care, and examples of good practice. In the artistic research, we will also focus on the reflection of these themes in contemporary art in Iceland and in the country. Through collaboration with artists from both countries and through interviews with scientists and experts, we aim to bring this topic into the public debate.

The exhibition is conceived in three sections. At its core are expert information, documentary material and audiovisual outputs from specific locations affected by soil erosion, mainly from the two countries mentioned above. This information will be responded to by art projects created directly on the topic of erosion. The final section will be a curated exhibition of artistic outputs that relate more broadly to the theme of soil and erosion processes and its relationship with the ecosystem and society.

 

The Practice of Decolonisation

The chapter The Practice of Decolonization, prepared by Jiří Žák and Matěj Pavlík, focuses on the historical, political and cultural issues of decolonization discourse in Norway and the Czech Republic. The issue of decolonization has become an increasingly dominant theme across Europe in the last few decades. The debate about it is taking place in the two countries with different intensity and expectations, which is also due to the specific historical experience of the two countries. The chapter consists of three outputs: an audio documentary series, a digital publication, and an original art video.

A substantial part of the project consists of interviews that are part of a documentary audio series. The individual episodes focus on understanding decolonisation issues in different contexts, with the main line of the series being the description of the emancipatory activities of the Sámi people in Norwegian society. Through interviews with Sámi artists, activists and historians, the audience learns about the constitutive role of art in the life of the Sámi community or how art is linked to political awareness and civic activism among the Sámi. Incidents where they had to fight the Norwegian government against the problematic construction of hydroelectric or wind power projects in traditional Sami pastoral areas are essential to Sami self-determination. Although the controversial constructions pretend to be ecological projects, in reality they only disturb the local ecosystem and do not respect Sami rights. These conflicts are referred to by critical voices as so-called green colonialism. In addition to the Sámi experience, one part of the audio series explores the incredible and intricate story of a particular work of art, the play Ways of Seeing, which shook the highest levels of Norwegian politics and made visible the more general features of intolerance and racism in Norwegian media space and society. The layered narrative begins with an engaged performance piece, and ends with the resignation of the Minister of Justice and the trial of his female partner. Sara Baban, an artist and performer of Kurdish-Iraqi origin, will guide us through this work. We will also learn how Norwegian society has been marked by the horrific terrorist act of the far-right terrorist Anders Breivik.

Another theme that emerges in the chapter on The Practice of Decolonization is resistance to decolonization policies in the context of deepening culture wars. From the experiences of our interviewees, we learn more about the transformation of Norwegian society after the massacre on Utøya Island in 2011, or the normalisation of hate speech and the increasingly audible far-right views in the Norwegian media space. Resistance to ideas of decolonisation is closely linked to this conservative turn.

As part of the digital publication output, a text by our collaborator Amanda Fayant will be published. Amanda is a Cree-Métis-Saulteaux artist and researcher working in the Decolonial arts education research and practice group at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. In her text she writes about the relationship between decolonization and pedagogy. She talks about the need for a pedagogy of care that emphasizes mutual respect and dialogue and is based on compassion, affirmation and investment in transformative practice. Another text was written by Associate Professor of Education Stine H. Bang Svendsen from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology on the specificities of Sami pedagogy. Decolonization in the context of education, arts education and pedagogy is a theme that was important for the chapter authors to articulate in their contributions. Social anthropologist Sindre Bangstad's text situates decolonization efforts in Norway in its historical context and in the present. You will learn about student-led decolonization initiatives in Norway that seek to push for practical changes within the functioning of universities and academies. Fundamental to these initiatives is the recognition of ethnic, social and gender inequalities within arts education institutions, as well as the absence of non-European perspectives within the academic syllabus.

The last output of the chapter The Practice of Decolonization is an artistic video by Jiří Žák and Matěj Pavlík, which reflexively works with the perspective of so-called dark tourism, which is explained as visiting places that are associated with tragic events. The authors have taken analogue photographs at places such as Utøya Island (the scene of an ultra-right-wing terrorist attack), the Fosen Vind wind farm complex (a problematic energy infrastructure that destroys the ecosystem of winter pastures in Sami territory), or the controversial sculpture park in the heart of Oslo, which according to some personifies a fascist aesthetic and is the work of alleged Nazi sympathiser Gustav Vigeland. Through the images of these sites, the authors ask a double-edged ironic question: are the dark tourists in these places proof that the tragedy is over?

 

Unprotected Nature

David Přílučík’s chapter Unprotected Nature focuses on the formation and still changing discourse on how we understand the concept of nature and what it entails, especially when we talk about its protection. The chapter is divided into three parts - a three-part podcast, four text interviews interspersed with artworks, and an art video.

These different parts of the media are based on the assumption (strange as it may sound) that modern conceptions and thinking about nature can hinder adequate responses to environmental problems. Nature has long been seen as a neutral category that confirms the status quo, so thinking about it has been - from certain angles - overlooked.

What is the role of nature? Some say that nature has always been there. Others say that it was not discovered but gradually invented. This perspective implies that there is no one nature in thinking about nature, but a variety of contested natures that arise through more-than-human coexistence. Any understanding of what nature means thus necessarily involves an understanding of the society in which (or by which) it is shaped. The Unprotected Nature project seeks ways in which we can consciously participate in processes of understanding beyond established ideas.

Racism, slavery, extractivism and reproductive labour are just some of the effects that the surviving natural/non-natural divide has had on everyday life. Its modern conception of nature seems to have the enduring power to legitimize often contradictory tendencies. It juxtaposes proponents and opponents of the traditional family, hunters and animal protectors, science lovers and conspiracy theorists.

Although the division between human and non-human is proving outdated, recent events remind us that we are still living in the grip of this idea. The more we are confronted with the events that the dualistic positioning of humans as superior to their environment has brought us in the form of climate change, pandemics, genocides or energy crises, the more we need to continue to critique this issue in a broader context.

How then to update or move beyond an outdated notion? The possible explanations that modernity has offered (and that still persist today) have become rather complicit in the problem, without providing any solutions. The chapter Unprotected Nature offers a persistence in this ambiguous constellation. It does not attempt to define, but rather to reflect on the ambiguity and problematize the universal status that surrounds nature. As we come to know nature, we also unravel our own, human, story. A story made up of spindles of dreams, needs and practices. Along with questions about nature, its conservation and history, we thus come to know our own limits and possibilities.

Through the contributions of researchers, theorists, artists and scientists, we seek to understand, through podcasts, publications and experimental film, how the discourse around nature is shaped, who and how is involved in its management, and which practices and voices are not heard. In doing so, we create a space where the conventional perspective of nature ceases to be protected by the traditional framework and opens it up to new interspecies meanings and alliances.