Ashura/عَاشُورَاء is a popular Arab and Turkish dessert. It is believed to be the dish that Nuh/نُوْحٌ (Noah) and his family ate on the day the Ark landed on Mount Arrarat after the flood. It’s ingredients – grains, nuts, and dried fruits – are supposed to have been the only food left on the ark after the long journey. This is a recipe from a website called Arab America.
The word Ashura/عَاشُورَاء means “tenth” and refers to the tenth day of the month. According to the Quran/القرآن God split the Red Sea on the tenth day to save Musa/موسی ابن عمران (Moses) and his people. For Shia Muslims the day is mostly remembered for the Battle of Karbala and the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali.
Turkey / Armenia; 7. Century AD; Islamic; Food; Mountain: Ararat
In the US-American 2014 movie Godzilla, the cityscape – in this case the coastal city San Francisco – experiences an interesting reversal of the culture-nature-dichotomy. The city here is not the place of culture and humanity, but the battle site of a fight between two animal species (Godzilla and the Mutos) – a jungle where creators fight one another mercilessly. In this first image, the soldiers with their parachutes are descending from heaven like fallen angels. The imagery implies, that the city is in fact the underworld, hell.
Once the fight is over and nature has had it’s way (Godzilla killed the Mutos while apparently dying herself too) the shape of Godzilla’s body on the ground morphes with the ruins of the city. Animal and city appear as one. But the image also quote another deaster, that was caused by humans and NOT nature: 9/11.
The monster Godzilla is originally a Japanese creation and has been adapted by Hollywood. Gojira, as she is originally called, is part of the extraordinarily rich cultural heritage of desaster metaphors and narratives in Japan, reflecting the seismic instability of the islands and the long experience in dealing with natural desasters and extreme weather events. The US-american movie shows how the trope is adapted to a different cultural setting.
Soldiers Grove is a village situated along the Kickapoo River in Crawford County, Wisconsin, in the United States. The population was 592 at the 2010 census. The town has become a case study in best practices for managed retreat. In 1978, flooding inundated the Soldiers Grove area. In the aftermath of the disaster, $900,000 in federal funds were provided to assist in relocating the village’s business district to higher ground. Construction of the new business district began in 1979 and was completed by 1983. A park replaced the old downtown area along the river. It later became the self proclaimed “America’s First Solar Village”. (Quote: Wikiepdia)
USA; 20. Century; Policy, Managed Retreat; City: Soldiers Grove
The small nation state Kiribati has become well known, because it is projected to be one of the first nations who’s citizens are forced into migration because of Rising Sea Levels. Kiribati is made up of 32 atolls scattered across the southern Pacific Ocean. There are no places on these atolls high enough so that migration within the country would be a solution. So the government has created a program called “migration with dignity” to help it’s population to become settled in other nation states. Find here an extensive research on the policy.
A sign in front of a home in the town Matatā in New Zealand, that been forced into “managed retreat”, the process where communities, buildings and infrastructure are gradually evacuated from areas designated uninhabitable or to dangerous. The sign reads ‘Whakatane district council stole our homes. Watch out the rest of NZ, you’re next!’ (Photograph: Stephen Langdon/The Guardian) Source and full article!
[Es] ist der Reiz der Ruine, dass hier ein Menschenwerk ganz wie ein Naturprodukt empfunden wird.
Dieselben Kräfte, die durch Verwitterung, Ausspülung, Zusammenstürzen, Ansetzen von Vegetation dem Berge seine Gestalt verschaffen, haben sich hier an dem Gemäuer wirksam erwiesen.
Was den Bau nach oben geführt hat, ist der menschliche Wille, was ihm sein jetziges Aussehen gibt, ist die mechanische, nach unten ziehende, zernagende und zertrümmernde Naturgewalt.
Aber sie lässt das Werk dennoch nicht in die Formlosigkeit bloßer Materie sinken, es entsteht eine neue Form, die vom Standpunkt der Natur aus durchaus sinnvoll, begreiflich, differenziert ist.
Die Natur hat das Kunstwerk zum Material ihrer Formung gemacht, wie vorher die Kunst sich der Natur als ihres Stoffes bedient hatte.
(Aus: Georg Simmel, Die Ruine, 1907)
engl. translation:
[It] is the attraction of the ruins that a work of man is perceived here as a product of nature.
The same forces that give the mountain its shape through weathering, washing out, collapsing, and the growth of vegetation have proved to be at work here on the walls.
Human will is what brought the structure up, what gives it its current appearance is the mechanical, downward-pulling, gnawing and smashing force of nature.
But she does not let the work sink into the formlessness of mere matter. A new form emerges that from the point of view of nature is quite meaningful, understandable, differentiated.
Nature has made the work of art the material of its formation, just as art had previously used nature as its material.
John Martin’s oil painting, acquired by Tate Gallery London in 1869, imagines the extent of the disaster that famously beset the sister cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum when the volcano Mount Vesuvius erupted on 24 August AD 79. The painting was first exhibited in 1822. In 1928 the painting was in basement storage when the Tate was severly affected by the Thames flood. The picture was badly damaged and effectively written off but was extensively restored in 2011. (Text quoted from Tate Gallery Website)
Thanks to Theresa Deichert for the tip!
UK; 19. Century; 21. Century; Christian; Painting; City: London
Eko Atlantic, officially Nigeria International Commerce city, also known as Eko Atlantic City, or the initials E.A.C. and E.A., is a planned city of Lagos State, Nigeria, being constructed on land reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean. Upon completion, the new peninsula is anticipating at least 250,000 residents and a daily flow of 150,000 commuters. The development is also designed to help in stopping the erosion of Lagos city’s coastline. (Quote Wikipedia)
