This EU project
will run from 1 March 2026 to 31 October 2027. The project activities kick off with the experimental setup and think-tank
event in Vienna.
Shaken Grounds: Art as Seismography is a transdisciplinary project exploring
the fragility and resilience of life on unstable terrain. It combines artistic research and practice to foster dialogue among
artists, cultural workers, scientists and institutions from Austria, Italy, Iceland and Croatia. These geographies form the
basis for examining how seismic conditions, literal and metaphorical, shape human and more-than-human experiences of environmental
and social precarity.
The project builds on and continues the FWF PEEK project Shaken
Grounds. Seismography of Precarious Presences (Grant DOI: 10.55776/AR780), conducted by the core researchers Nikolaus Gansterer,
Mariella Greil, Peter Kozek and Lucie Strecker, in close collaboration with Victor Jaschke and Werner Moebius.
Shaken
Grounds: Art as Seismography connects micro-organisations, universities and large-scale institutions: the Centro Itard / Volcanic
Attitude Festival, the Iceland University of the Arts, the University of Applied Arts Vienna and, as lead partner, the Museum
of Contemporary Art in Zagreb. A think-tank, workshops, on-site research and shared curation will culminate in a collaborative
final exhibition and symposium in 2027.
Artistic engagement with planetary systems
has gained momentum, but human-induced seismicity remains underexplored. Shaken Grounds expands this field, embracing instability
as a state of transformation. It engages with seismography as both a physical and metaphorical method and, by juxtaposing
contemporary and historical artworks, reveals the evolution of cultural and artistic responses to scientific, philosophical
and societal ruptures, and shifting terrestrial and social conditions.
At the project’s
core is a process of knowledge-sharing, co-curation and artistic co-production, encouraging transdisciplinary methodological
innovation and the cross-border dissemination of research. Shaken Grounds strengthens international artistic cooperation while
fostering the sustainability of cultural institutions and independent practitioners. It advances exchange, shared responsibility
and artistic approaches to resilience, responding critically and imaginatively to the ecological, political and existential
uncertainties of our time.
Schedule of main project activities:
- Experimental
setup and think-tank in Vienna, May 4 – 6, 2026
- Gibellina, Italian Capital of Contemporary Art, September
3 – 6, 2026
- Volcanic Attitude Festival, September 25
– 28, 2026
- Exhibition and symposium at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, in 2027 (tbd)
Project
Lead:
Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Croatia
Project
Partners:
University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria
Iceland University
of the Arts, Reykjavík, Iceland
Centro Itard Lombardia / Volcanic Attitude Festival, Italy
Funded
by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect
those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor
EACEA can be held responsible for them.
