September 3–6, 2026
Shaken Grounds: At the Edge of Form brings together local residents, artists, writers, philosophers, curators, geophysicists, and a wide audience for four days of meetings in Gibellina.
Through film screenings, live performances, a symposium, and discussions, the program offers a space for reflection on what it means to live with seismic uncertainty. In a landscape shaped by the memory of the 1968 Belice earthquake and by ever-present questions of vulnerability and transformation, artistic practice becomes a way to listen, bear witness, and imagine, alongside scientific, philosophical, and local forms of knowledge.
The event is part of the collaborative project Shaken Grounds. Art as Seismography within Creative Europe, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb (MSU), the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the Iceland University of the Arts, and the Volcanic Attitude Festival. The meetings in Gibellina represent a stage in a broader collaborative process initiated by the Shaken Grounds collective in 2023. The process will culminate in a group exhibition and an international symposium at the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb on April 29 and 30, 2027.
Rather than following the format of a conventional conference, the four days unfold as a gradual journey through various modes of encounter: from cinematic experience to shared artistic practice, from interdisciplinary dialogue to reflections on moving images. This journey is accompanied by questions—not as problems to be solved, but as ways to approach the relationships between bodies and landscapes, memory and the unconscious, the Earth's incessant processes and our own capacity to respond.
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.
Supported and co-financed by the EU, the Austrian Ministry of Culture of Housing, Arts, Culture Media and Sport Republic of Austria and the Austrian Cultural Forum Rome.
Image credit: ©Shaken Grounds, 2025
The event program:
THURSDAY, 3 SEPTEMBER 2026, 18:30
Auditorium del MAC – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea “Ludovico Corrao”, Viale Segesta, 91024 Gibellina (TP), Sicily
Opening Film Screening: Shaken Grounds, Shifting Skies
Words of Welcome
Salvatore Sutera, Mayor of Gibellina and Andrea Cusumano, Artistic
Director, Gibellina – Italian Capital of Contemporary Art 2026
Screening of the film followed by an informal conversation with the Shaken Grounds Collective (Nikolaus Gansterer, Mariella Greil, Victor Jaschke, Peter Kozek, Werner Moebius, Lucie Strecker).
FRIDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER 2026, 17:00
Sistema delle Piazze, 91024 Gibellina (TP), Sicily
Live Filming: What Holds Us Before We Are?
With the Shaken Grounds Collective
SATURDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER 2026, 9:30 – 15:00
Auditorium del MAC – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea “Ludovico Corrao”, Viale Segesta, 91024 Gibellina (TP), Sicily
Symposium: Shaken Grounds. At the Edge of Form
9:30
Welcome Coffee
10:00
Opening Remarks
Claudio Saponara, Project Officer, European Commission
10:15–10:40
Where is the Edge of Form?
Lucie Strecker, Artist and Researcher, University of Applied Arts Vienna
10:40–11:00
Questions on Questions
Olga Bach, Writer, Palermo
11:00–11:20
Between Fear and Hope: From Seismic Fragility to Awareness and Response
Alessandro Amato, Geophysicist and Seismologist (INGV, Rome)
11:20–11:40
Is the Heart of the Earth a Fire Dog? Seismographies of the Elusive
Nikolaus Gansterer, Artist and Researcher, University of Applied Arts Vienna
11:40–12:00
Isola Ferdinandea: The Ontopoetics of Emergence and Disappearance
Lorenzo Marsili, Philosopher and Director, Berggruen Institute Europe
12:00–12:20
Embodied Reverberations amidst Seismic Wave Oekologies – What Epistemes
Emerge Between Tremor and Trauma?
Mariella Greil, Artist and Researcher, University of Applied Arts Vienna
12:20–12:40
Light Reading
Victor Jaschke, Independent Filmmaker
Mariella Greil, Artist and Researcher, University of Applied Arts Vienna
12:40 -13:40
Lunch Break
13:40–14:00
Unstable Grounds: Artistic Practices from Croatia in the Context of the Shaken
Grounds Project
Vesna Meštrić, Art Historian and Director, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb (MSU)
14:00–14:30
Volcanic Attitude ‘Vibrant Elements’: A Nomadic Festival Activating Permanent
Transformations – Conversation & Video Screening
Helga Franza, Susanna Ravelli, Giulia Restifo, Curatorial team, Volcanic Attitude
Festival
14:30–15:00
Closing Discussion, moderated by Vesna Meštrić
SATURDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER 2026, Evening Programme, 19:00
Chiesa Madre, Viale Vitaliano Brancati, 91024 Gibellina (TP), Sicily, Italy
Performance Lectures & Collective Improvisation
19:00
Reinforced Aperitif
19:15
What Takes Root in Shaken Grounds?
Shaken Grounds Collective
19:30
Vertical Horizon
Anna Líndal, Artist and Researcher, Iceland University of the Arts
Bjarki Bragason, Artist and Dean, Iceland University of the Arts
20:00 – open end
Can Thinking Tremble? A Jam Session after Édouard Glissant
An open collective improvisation inspired by Édouard Glissant’s concept of trembling thought
SUNDAY, 6 SEPTEMBER 2026, 21:00
Auditorium del MAC – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea “Ludovico Corrao”, Viale Segesta, 91024 Gibellina (TP), Sicily
Film Evening: How Does Imagination Affect the Earth’s Crust, and How Does the Earth’s Crust, in Turn, Affect Imagination?
A selection of films and moving-image works exploring seismic landscapes, environmental transformation, deep time, artistic witnessing, and the shifting relationships between human and more-than-human worlds, curated and moderated by Peter Kozek.
Italiano 
English (UK)