Abstract
There are thousands of ways to achieve a sustainable future for our Planet. Some of these follow high-value scientific research activities, while others simply aim to increase people’s awareness of what can and should be done to improve our, and our children’s, quality of life. The easiest way to develop this specific kind of ‘spread of culture’ consists of bringing back to life what was preserved of the history of a population and of a territory, by representing it in a renewed form, and by making it ‘food for thought’. The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) followed this approach and decided to publish two volumes where the objective was to make people more aware of the geological and volcanic risks in some specific areas of Italy. The immediacy of the photography is used to tell the stories of volcanoes and earthquakes, to represent past events that have become ‘memories’. and to use these as a basis to build a better future. Terremoto Calabro Messinese, 1908/2008 and Terre di Fuoco are the two photographic books that have been published by INGV in cooperation with Alinari, the oldest firm in the world in the field of photography and image communication. The photographs selected to be included in the two books had a double significance: on the one side, they had to convey to the reader the immediacy of the emotions that other people had felt and lived; and on the other side, they had to make people understand the importance of prevention. The fascination of history, the importance of memories of the past, and the extraordinary strength of images help the reader build a link between the past, the present and the future, where the lessons learnt from past centuries and from the study of the Earth and its energy help us to understand which steps should be taken to achieve a ‘sustainable’ future.
Highlights
Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes have always accompanied man over the centuries
While this applies to our entire Planet, in Italy, the immense archives of writings and testimonies of the past have allowed scholars to understand the series of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes over the centuries
Due to the immediacy and accuracy of what pictures tell, the ‘memory’ becomes clear and translates into a suitable instrument for every use, from scientific to informative. By looking at these photographs, every reader can find a source for reflection: from researchers, who find materials to improve their knowledge of a phenomena and their studies, to simple citizens, who have the ability to see the reality of the events that changed the history of some parts of their territory. This process is seen in the choice of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV; Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology) to publish two volumes that through their vintage photographs tell the story of the Sicilian volcanoes and the tragedy of the earthquake that devastated the Messina and Reggio Calabria area 100 years ago
Summary
Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes have always accompanied man over the centuries. As manifestations, sometimes extreme, of the internal dynamics of our Planet, they have been the subject of stories and documents of extraordinary quality. Man has always tried to describe what happens during an earthquake and to document the power of volcanic eruptions, their effects, the tragedies of the victims and survivors, the difficulties of reconstruction, and all of the steps of these natural events, almost wanting to leave a constructive witness of what they have observed.
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