International student fine art symposium focused on the phenomena of wilderness
During the symposium, Czech and German artists are encouraged to work on their own project reflecting newly established wilderness of Šumava / Böhmerwald national park landscape. Symposium participant have the unique possibility to stay, work and wander in the very heart of the protected forest areas and thus to learn about it. Artist are also given additional info from local guide experts.
The idea to organize an art symposium in Tummeplatz came from our belief that Nature parks are not only areas of nationally protected bodies of land, but those parks could also play active role in cultural exchange between the border countries.
National parks themselves have been in center of interest of scientists, policians and cultural activist for many years. Beside that, parks quickly became atractive for tourists (of many kinds).
Firestorms and other catastrophes (such as the one in Yellowstone or the issue with the bark beetles) previously proved that development of nature can be fully independent from human interventions.
We quickly forfeit the idea of nature as an opposite to permanent chaos of city life. The forest have taught us, that it could be grey for many years even if our ancestors remembered it to be a “green ocean”. Windstorm can turn a beautiful and organized place into a jungle in an instant.
Development of nature suddenly became a question of aesthetics. There are heated talks on that on both dies of the border.
Unfortunately, no future symposium is planned at the moment.