KIRKA

This work is part of a collective exhibition The Anthropocene: Before, Still and Tomorrow curated by Vítor Nieves.

KIRKA

At the end of the 20th century, no more than three bears lived throughout the Alps: they were three males, too old to reproduce. Since the second half of the 19th century, bears have been the victims of a wild hunt aimed at the annihilation of the species from the Alps. Mission almost accomplished. In 1996 the European project “Life Ursus” was born with the aim of restoring within twenty years a minimum viable population through the reintroduction of ten bears from Slovenia. Three years later, the first bears were released in the upper portion of the Tovel Valley, in those very Brenta Dolomites that housed the last three bears which survived the previous century’s carnage. Today in Trentino there are about a hundred bears and their return has reignited the same conflicts that have always marked human-animal coexistence. Their return triggers the ferocity of those who still argue that “bears have never lived here”.

The bear has been exploited as a distinctive element, a source of pride for the entire territory. Thus, in the most densely populated mountain region of the world, came the first accidents from close coexistence. Simultaneously, animal rights movements started mobilising for the safeguard of bears’ freedom. Problems in the management of bears like Daniza, JJ3 and M49 brought the issue to national and international media attention.

On Wednesday, 5 April 2023, in the woods above Caldes in Val di Sole, bear JJ4 attacked and killed 26-year-old Andrea Papi. It was the first fatal bear attack in Italy. Since that day, the clash between the provincial government, animal rights activists, Trentino people, breeders and hunters has flared up again. Some say to shoot JJ4, some to lock it up, some to move 70 bears ‘somewhere else’, some to cull the problem animals. And then there is the Fasano zoo, which is asking to take custody of the bear JJ4. Hence, while some see them as a new symbol of a much needed environmental revolution, others see them as thieves or murderers. Some study them, others sneak around their lairs. Kirka is the story of the presence of bears in the Alps throughout the centuries: from the countless fossil remains found in Conturines cave, to the myth of San Romedio, from Oetzi the IceMan’s hat to the frescoes of Torre dell’Aquila in Trento. Ultimately, Kirka is the story of how to save a species from localised extinction and how to make coexistence, too often threatened, possible.

Mosteiro de Tibães
R. do Mosteiro n.º 59, 4700-565 Mire de Tibães

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