"Variety is the condition of beauty itself" (Eugenio Turri, Il paesaggio e il silenzio) 

The exhibition Di Umana Natura (Of Human Nature), curated by Mauro Varotto, Carlotta Fassina, Chiara Gallanti and Lucia Turri, was held in the Music Room of the Geography Museum of the University of Padua from 30 May to 15 September 2025.

However, thanks to its flexible nature, with 11 panels and a video, it is an exhibition designed to travel. Anyone interested in hosting the exhibition can write to museo.geografia@unipd.it. The exhibition can be viewed in English via QR code.

The exhibition itinerary revolves around five key themes: first of all, water, an essential element for life and the heart of the millennial intertwining of culture and nature that is the basis of the region's rich biodiversity. Sought after, channelled, drained and distributed, the water in Turri's photographs tells us about the challenges of arid lands, technologies forsupplying cities, and cultivation and livestock farming systems that have developed in response to specific environmental conditions.

The journey continues with plants and animals, whose variety in the Mediterranean region is the result of the ancient combination of natural selection and artificial selection implemented by humans. Turri's gaze focuses on crops besieged by aridity, on the remnants of landscapes shaped by promiscuous cultivation, as well as on traditional extensive farming, grazing and transhumance practices that have promoted sustainable soil management. But also on the loss of the intimate bond with the cultivated land and the animals that standardised farming and agricultural practices, together with urbanisation, have determined since the Second World War.

 The last two sections deal, on the one hand, with Mediterranean rocks and soils, a characteristic geodiversity that underpins the region's biodiversity, as well as the rich diversity of the Mediterranean landscape in general, of which Turri has captured and interpreted many manifestations. On the other hand, they deal with the people who, through farming, breeding and building, have shaped this diversity. According to Turri, the “death of geography” consists precisely in the eradication of biodiversity and cultural diversity: two closely related threats that must be opposed by building one's own living environment according to the suggestions of nature itself.

A final game allows the public to locate, on a blank map of the Mediterranean region, reproductions of the photos on display, in order to playfully recover a synchronic vision and further enrich their understanding of the rich intertwining of nature and culture that characterises it.

The graphic concept and setting are by Studio Amuse, in particular by Stefania Ingoglia with Raffaela Brazzoduro.

Go to the page dedicated to the inauguration and the book of visitors >>