The story of the Vajont landslide told through the photographs of Edoardo Semenza

The "Vaiont disaster" of 9 October 1963, a paradigm of the catastrophe of human origin, is illustrated through the exceptional photos taken by Prof. Edoardo Semenza before and immediately after the event. He was one of Italy’s leading landslide researchers. He put his distinctive mark on the understanding of the Alpine range structure, making original contributions to the geology, tectonics and geomorphology of the Dolomites. Semenza was the geologist who discovered that an ancient landslide mass was present on the southern side of the Vaiont valley upstream from the reservoir under construction, years before the beginning of its initial mobilization. In the images shown in the thirteen roll-ups, the intuitions, growing awareness, and sense of urgency of the man who first recognized the existence of the ancient landslide become evident. They reveal his "mente et malleo" approach, which allowed him to develop a model of the slope and what today we call risk scenarios. His discovery was immediately taken into consideration by the designer and project managers of the dam, albeit only as a hypothesis to be verified with follow-up research and investigations. Unfortunately, his work, which lasted until 1961, did not prevent the disaster from taking place. Semenza’s photographs therefore allow us to access both his intimate and personal, and professional dimensions. The landslide is still today the subject of debate and scientific reflection, due to the extraordinary amount of data available, as well as to the corpus of memories, stories, and testimonies that affected communities preserve and continue to build. A part of these materials, taken from the volume and CD "The photos of the Vajont landslide" and from Edoardo Semenza’s book on the landslide, is shown in the roll-up banners, and constitutes a contribution to the discussion. Texts, images and captions are selected and adapted from these two publications. Through this exhibition and a renewed attention to Semenza’s work we hope to raise awareness on the fundamental role that the knowledge of geology holds for the respect and protection of the environment. This exhibition also wants to be an invitation to the spectators of the exhibition to build upon the research of Edoardo Semenza and other scholars who have dedicated so much of their efforts to the study of the Vaiont landslide.