When people are confronted with natural phenomena such as earthquakes, storms, hail and flooding, their reaction tends to be extremely emotional. Combined with concepts such as climate change and global warming, the opinion often held is that such events have been occurring more frequently over the last decades and causing greater damage than in the past. This impression is understandable in light of the frequent flood events on the Danube in the past 15 years, the damage left in the wakes of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, windstorm Kyrill in Europe in 2007, the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean in 2004 and numerous earthquakes. Such events remain etched – at least for a generation - on people’s memories.

However, it is all too easily forgotten that natural phenomena affected people’s lives in the past, too, and will presumably continue to do so in the future. For this reason the exhibition at Museum Niederösterreich seeks, firstly, to explain what is actually behind these forces of nature. What causes earthquakes? What makes mountains begin sliding? Why do floods occur, and how do ice jams come about? Secondly, the exhibition aims to trace an arc from historical events to the present, incorporating themes such as the fundamental research conducted at the Conrad Observatory in Trafelberg, Lower Austria, social and economic aspects and how such events are received in painting, literature and music.

Curator: Christa Hammerl (ZAMG)