Havoc and Rebirth: Comparative Perspectives on Art and Earthquake

Earthquakes present a paradox for art: they bring devastating material destruction and psychological trauma, yet also open up space for creation and renewal. This panel invites scholars to critically engage with both the destructive and the generative dimensions of earthquakes—or, by extension, disaster—in relation to art, most broadly conceived.

An earthquake often provokes a strong impulse to represent devastation in visual culture. The ruined landscape may also serve as an empty ground for new artistic and architectural endeavors to emerge. The creative force of art-making also has the potential to envision a world free of disaster, offering ways to mitigate loss and instill hope for those who survived. More importantly, artistic and architectural responses to seismic and ecological upheavals also reflect and interrogate economic, political, and social relations.

We hope each paper in this panel will ground its analysis in the deep historical contexts of individual cases. Collectively, they will also provide a trans-historical, comparative perspective on how art represents, rethinks, and reimagines life in the aftermath of an earthquake.