Friuli-Venezia Giulia:
Sites, Environments, Itineraries in a Post-Catastrophic Perspective

Friuli-Venezia Giulia is an autonomous region at the Italian North East borders, established as such in 1963, consisting of unstable and highly diversified territories, with alpine and pre-alpine mountains, lakes and hills, fluvial valleys and extended plains as well as coastal areas bordering the Adriatic Sea. 

These complex landscapes, shaped by both natural and human forces, reveal stratigraphies of temporalities – from geological deep time to history. While human life concentrates in cities like Trieste, many urban centers and numerous villages, centuries of anthropic intervention have shaped the territory and left lasting marks: infrastructure, agriculture, industry, warfare, and cycles of destruction and reconstruction. Friuli-Venezia Giulia and its subregions were a conflict zone from antiquity through the Austro-Hungarian empire and Italian national state in the 19^th century struggles, and was deeply scarred during World War I and also World War II. For decades it was at the frontier between Italy and former Yugoslavia.

The 2025 Studienkurs of the KHI will visit cities such as Venzone and Gemona, strongly hit by the earthquake of 1976, including their photographic archives and respective museums, to study how loss has been made visible and reconstruction legible. The visits will include encounters and conversations with scholars, artists and cultural workers, to learn about the discourses of memory and collective coping with trauma, as well as to discuss literary and artistic responses.

Catastrophes and post-catastrophic dynamics will be a prime topic of the Studienkurs, not only regarding war and earthquakes, but also the human engineered disaster of Vajont or the asbestos crisis in the shipyards of Monfalcone. At the same time, it will study the artistic dimension of the region with its monuments, sites, and itineraries from Roman mosaics to 21^st century architecture, film and literature (one might consider Pier Paolo Pasolini, for example). With this approach, the Studienkurs aims to overcome the notion of an artistic landscape as extracted from the complex eco-historical and socio-political dimensions of a territory.