The exhibition will be open to visitors on December 4th at Palazzo Biscari, And from 9 December 2024 to 6 January 2026 both at The Talking Room of Palazzo Platamone
Il 4 December at 17:30, at Palazzo Biscari (via Museo Biscari n. 10, Catania), testimony of Sicilian Baroque in the heart of the historic center, the exhibition will be inaugurated “SNOWFIREICESULFULLAVA”, organized byNational Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) and edited by Stephen Branca, Director of the Volcanoes Department of the INGV, Mario Matthias, Chief Technologist of the Etna Observatory of Catania, and Maria Donata Napoli, Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo.
The exhibition collects fifty photographs by Fosco Maraini, famous photographer, anthropologist and writer, made during the eruption of Etna in 1950-51, an event that put local and national authorities to the test in the face of the threat of destruction of the countries of Milo e Fornazzo.
Maraini's aim, however, focuses not only on the strength of the natural phenomenon, but above all on the faces of men and women who faced the volcano's latest challenge with dignity and faith.
The images recount the moments of seeking the protection of the Patron Saint, the preparations for evacuation, and the hope for a return to life and cultivation in a land as generous as it is unpredictable.
Maraini becomes like this precious witness of a collective memory still alive in the Etna community, narrating a story of humanity and resistance, without pity or commiseration, but with deep respect for the protagonists of that ancient struggle against the power of the giant Typhoeus. In his works, Etna emerges as place of the sublime, where horror and wonder coexist in the same natural spectacle.
The curators also managed to recover the original documentary “Etna mareneve”, shot by Maraini in the early 1950s, in which the author expresses his amazement as a mountain man in front of a giant made of snow, fire, ice, sulfur and lavaThe film, among the first to present underwater images accessible to the public, it shows places now disappeared, where in a few hours one went from the silence of the ice to the marine depths of the Etna coast.
The exhibition will be open to visitors on December 4th at Palazzo Biscari, And from 9 December 2024 to 6 January 2026 both at The Talking Room of Palazzo Platamone (via Vittorio Emanuele II n. 123, Catania).
During the inauguration the book will be distributed free of charge. catalog created with the collaboration of the President of the INGV Fabio Florindo, of Dacia Maraini, Francesco Paolo Campione, Rossella Paternò, Marco Albino Ferrari e Paul Sessa.
The initiative was carried out in collaboration with the Municipality of Catania and with the contribution of Alinari Foundation for Photography, from the Vieusseux Cabinet of Florence, from the National Mountain Museum of the Italian Alpine Club in Turin and of the daily newspaper “Sicily” of Catania.
Link to evaluate:
National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV)
Etna Observatory of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV - OE)
Academy of Fine Arts of Palermo
Alinari Foundation for Photography
National Mountain Museum of the Italian Alpine Club in Turin
