What lies “under” the landscape? In various debates concerning the multiple crises that have marked the first quarter of the 21st century, the notion of landscape has become a pivotal term. The Symposium Under the Landscape aimed for a critical reevaluation of the very term and notion of the ‘landscape’ and its potential value as a meeting ground for strategic collaborations.

The Symposium took place in the islands of Santorini and Therasia from 26th June to 29th June 2022. The Symposium was the third instalment of a series of events organised by Boulouki in Santorini and Therasia. Following two applied (field-research and construction) workshops, the Symposium aimed to be a theoretical counterpart and to generate an interaction between different fields around the study of landscapes. It comprised keynote lectures by distinguished thinkers and a three-day workshop for young researchers (PhD students, early-stage Post-Docs) and practitioners from all disciplines that engage critically with landscape and its transformations (architecture/landscape architecture, environmental studies and ecology, geography, ethnography, history, archaeology, fine arts, etc.).

When do lands become landscapes? When do representations become more visible than the actual places? The contribution reflects on the problematic of the Symposium, revisiting the mythicised landscapes of Arcadia in Greece. In the intersection between a bucolic myth and oral micro-histories from the mountainous region of Arcadia, the paper challenges the myth of an idyllic urban exterior, exploring its political significance in the production of spatial otherness. By examining the process of vocation and reinvention of its landscape, the paper argues that within the patterns of land and nature and the lived experiences of Arcadia, a territory under negotiation emerges—a contradictory and multilayered space of local, national, and global interconnections.