A landscape where nature and humanity intertwine

The Mediterranean is considered one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots: though it accounts for less than 1% of the planet’s marine surface, it hosts nearly 10% of all marine species, with a biodiversity density ten times the global average.

Yet this richness is not purely natural: it is also the result of thousands of years of interaction between people and environment, migrations, domestication, and the shaping of landscapes.
The photographs of Eugenio Turri document both the harmonious and destructive sides of human action - celebrating its creative role in Mediterranean landscapes, while also warning of its recent damages.
The exhibition “Of Human Nature” invites us to blur the line between the human and the natural, and to rediscover the vital role that human communities have played - and still can play - in fostering and protecting biodiversity.

The sections of this virtual exhibition mirror those of the physical exhibition, but the number of photos included is greater, offering further insights into Mediterranean diversity.

The five themes are:

  WATER – a fundamental element for life, whose absence or scarcity puts biodiversity at risk;

  PLANTS – cultivated or wild, the result of a millennial intertwining of natural and artificial selection;

  ANIMALS – domesticated by humans as a food source or to help with work;

  STONES AND SOILS – whose variety favours the development of different forms of life;

  PEOPLE – who can enrich or reduce biodiversity.