DeepLandS

Environmental disasters are becoming a disturbing, new reality. While they dramatically alter how we perceive and live in affected areas, the personal, everyday impacts of these changes often remain in the backdrop of public discourse and policy. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the DeepLandS project seeks to bridge this gap as an innovative phenomenological inquiry into the sensory and emotional aftermath of disasters. It looks into the recovery of two landscapes, in Portugal and Slovenia, shedding light on the sensory aspects of day-to-day life following the events that are among the worst wildfires in living memory. By examining the lived experiences and private narratives of those affected, the project offers a nuanced understanding of the fragility of post-disaster “normalisation” and the diverse realities of recovery. By harnessing sensory and artistic methods, the project relies on an empirically grounded approach to deep mapping to explore the evolving relationships between the senses and the environment, moving beyond representational and symbolic understandings. Such an approach shifts the focus from reparative to a transformative, regenerative, and holistic approach to post-disaster living, positioning creativity at the core of the recovery process.

Prof. Dr. Rajko Muršič is professor of ethnology/cultural anthropology at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Dept. of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology. His research focuses on urban anthropology, methodology of anthropological research, sensory studies, (anthropology of) popular music, theories of culture, epistemology, digital ethnography, the use of algorithms, etc. His regional interests comprise Slovenia, Central and South-Eastern Europe (fieldwork in Slovenia, Poland, North Macedonia, Germany, and Japan).
He published eight monographs (all in Slovene) and co-edited nine collections (six in English). He was initial editor of the monograph series Zupanič’s Collection. He served as a member of the Executive Committee of the IUAES and a president of the Slovenian Ethnological and Anthropological Association Kula. He participated as an expert researcher in the ERC project Sensotra (Sensory Transformations and Transgenerational Environmental Relationships in Europe, 1950-2020) at the University of Eastern Finland (2016-2021), and B-Air (Art Infinity Radio - Creating Sound Art for Babies, Toddlers and Vulnerable Groups) led by the Radio Slovenia (2020-2023). 
Since 2022, he participated in two projects, financed by the programme Chanse: Reimagining Public Values in Algorithmic Futures and Digital Aestheticization in/of Fragile Environments. He was recently as well involved in two basic research projects, financed by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency: Music of the Youth after 1945 and Music Youth of Slovenia (2021-2024); Isolated People and Communities in Slovenia and Croatia (2022-2025).

Dr. Nevena Tatović is an interdisciplinary researcher who works at the confluence of academic inquiry and the arts. She is based at the Faculty of Arts' Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow. Nevena completed a PhD in art history as a fellow of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, within the interdisciplinary heritage studies program jointly run by the University of Évora and the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon. She holds a master of research in heritage studies from the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (a joint diploma with the University of Padua and the University of Évora), and her previous background is in landscape architecture (BSc/MSc, University of Belgrade). Nevena's doctoral thesis reimagined landscape and intangibility through the notion of silence, contemplating the flux and connectivity of spiritual traditions, memories, and people–nature entanglements in one sacred natural site. Her research interests encompass phenomenology of landscape and drawing, art-based and sensory methods, environmental humanities and creative geographies, intangible values of nature and living heritage. At the core of her work is a curiosity to explore human experience of nature through silence and alternative ways of knowing.

For news and updates about the project, please visit: https://deeplandsproject.com/.