Extreme Spaces as Encounters

Images, Environments, and Otherness

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21974669
AutoresMaria Berbara (0000-0002-4087-4699, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, autor de correspondencia), Carolina Martínez (0000-0002-5692-0995, National University of General San Martín), André Reyes Novaes (0000-0001-6599-6468, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro)
Año2026
Volumen15
Número6
Páginas136
Fecha de publicación2026-06-08
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaArts (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2076-0752 • E-ISSN: 2076-0752
EditorialMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/arts15060136
OpenAlexW7163940782
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas33

Spaces labeled as ‘extreme’ have long fueled the imagination of those who sought to explore, conquer, and represent them. Framed in colonial narratives as terra incognita or finis terrae, these regions generated diverse forms of textual and visual knowledge while simultaneously arousing curiosity and fear. The polar regions, Amazonian forests, and the seas and mountains of Patagonia played a central role in shaping the epistemologies of modern science and art in South America, functioning as laboratories in which ways of seeing were tested and transformed through processes of encounter. In this paper, we move beyond approaches that treat extreme spaces as fixed geographical entities defined solely by climatic severity or environmental hostility. Drawing on a pedagogical experiment inspired by Warburgian image-based research practices, we argue that extreme spaces are better understood as relational constructs, co-produced through multispecies and intercultural encounters. Through a comparative analysis of European iconographies across South America, we identify two coexisting clusters of meaning: one organised around abundance, intercultural cooperation, and extractivism; the other around scarcity, resistance, and environmental imposition. By tracing the circulation and mobilization of these meanings across different environments, we propose an epistemology of extremes, suggesting a mode of knowledge production that classifies spaces through the lens of radical otherness

Colonialism · Constellation · Curiosity · Knowledge production · Narrative · Sovereignty · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Historical Geography and Geographical Thought