Introduction

Abstract

We often think of the landscape as something static or slowly changing, endowed with a sense of stability that is only disrupted in moments of crisis, such as natural or human disasters. Therefore, it is common for our understanding of the landscape, which is developed and expressed through both actual experience and representations, to refer to a static topography, leading us to find security in the stable spatial context generated also by the unchanging landscapes of our thoughts and memories. Furthermore, we often rely on maps and other visual references, which we assume present an accurate and still representation of the world around us. In this context, iconic geological features such as mountains are usually considered to be stable, unmovable elements, landmarks that are enhanced by their emblematic presence in the topography and their often rough materiality, which allow for a number of both cultural and historical axis mundi connotations to be attributed to them. This book challenges the assumed static qualities of mountains, offering humanities-based evaluations of the landscape. Questions related to performativity, hermeneutics and mobility theory are at the core of the discussions, offering new ways of considering the natural world and how society relates to it.

Landscape is tension, the tension between perceiver and perceived, subject and object.

Wylie et al. 2008, 202

Landscape isn’t either objective or subjective; it’s precisely an intertwining, a simultaneous gathering and unfurling, through which versions of self and world emerge as such.

Wylie et al., 203