Museological lunch with Veronica della Dora: Taming the Sublime: Mountains as Artefacts, Commodities and Heritage

Of all geographical objects, mountains are commonly deemed to be the most permanent and imposing - and perhaps the most insistently material. It is very easy to point at a mountain, but it is very difficult to establish what a mountain is exactly. For example, what is the difference between a mountain and a hill? Or where does one mountain stop and the next one begin?

While it is difficult to set boundaries around them, in our geographical imagination, mountains remain discrete objects - objects for us to experience, objects to consume, but also fragile objects to preserve. Is it possible to talk about mountains from a museological perspective? If so, how is a mountain an object different from or similar to those displayed in a museum? Why do we regard mountains as beautiful objects? When did we start to do so? And, more significantly, what are the consequences of doing so?

This talk addresses this question through contemporary and historical examples: from the writings of John Ruskin and Victorian conceptualizations of mountains as works of art to recent proposals to put Austrian mountains on sale to face financial crisis, from European "mountain re-modeling" projects to campaigns against mountaintop removals in the Appalachians.

 

Veronica della Dora is Senior Lecturer in Geographies of Knowledge in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol. She is the author of Imagining Mount Athos: Visions of a Holy Place from Homer to World War II (University of Virginia Press, 2011) and the coeditor of High Places: Cultural Geographies of Mountains, Ice, and Science (IB Tauris, 2009).

 

We serve coffee, tea and cake. All are welcome.

Organizers: Brita Brenna, Torild Gjesvik, Anne-Sofie Hjemdahl.