Marta Abbà
Geophysicist and photographer Martina Picciallo brings science and spirituality together in a project that questions the way we observe the Earth. It began with field surveys on the Poás volcano in Costa Rica. «The Earth is a desolate soul» is a visual and conceptual exploration proposing a new approach to knowledge: more integrated, more human, and able to listen beyond data.
What happens when someone who studies the Earth decides not only to measure it but to listen to it? This is the question behind La Terra è un’anima desolata (The Earth is a desolate soul), a visual and conceptual project developed by Martina Picciallo – geophysicist and documentary photographer, but above all «a human being who feels the Earth as an inner condition». The project took shape between 2020 and 2024, stemming from her participation as a geophysicist in surveys on the Poás volcano, as part of a mission organised in collaboration with Columbia University and the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica (OVSICORI), based in Poás National Park.
At its core is a deep reflection on the relationship between science and spirituality: two dimensions often kept apart, here brought together through images, data, bodies and silences. This is neither an aesthetic exercise nor a theoretical provocation – it is an act of inner resistance against a kind of knowledge that sees everything and contemplates nothing. A concrete attempt to rethink the scientific stance and its relationship with its subject: the Earth, not just as an object of analysis, but as a living presence with meaning, history and fragility.
Martina Picciallo is a geophysical scientist, author involved in the editorial and visual writing project “The Earth” and documentary photographer member and co-founder of Gaze Collective. She specialises in long term social and spiritual, sacred and ritual photography. Picciallo is also a humanitarian aid worker and collaborates with several NGOs on schooling projects in refugee camps in and outside Europe.
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A documentary exploring the paradox of knowledge
Rooted in the perspective of someone who embodies citizenship, scientific practice and a documentary gaze, Picciallo’s project moves through hybrid territories. It documents geophysical field research, showing what is, what will never be, and what could – and should – be. At the same time, it questions the discipline itself, opening a dialogue about its true purpose and the ways in which it should be fulfilled.
Beyond capturing the scientists’ movements, Picciallo deliberately steps into a lyrical and poetic realm, detaching herself from her “official” identity as a woman of science to raise wider questions about our relationship with the Earth the moment we begin to measure it. «I take a step back. A critical distance», Picciallo explains. «I become an intersection between science and spirituality, between precision and surrender, between analysis and poetry, driven by the urgency to express a thought that has long lived within me».
«Science taught me precision and respect for complexity. But it is through critical thinking and the value of classical method that I was able to traverse the most vulnerable and intimate, perhaps sacred, areas».
This is not about opposing science and art, innovation and memory, rigour and intuition. On the contrary: it is precisely in the meeting of these apparent opposites that space opens up for what Picciallo calls “the paradox of knowledge”. The ability to study without being able to truly reflect. «We understand more and more yet perhaps comprehend less and less. This is not a fault of science, but a fundamental limitation», the scientist explains. «To know is not only to explain, but to inhabit, to feel, and to be transformed alongside what we observe».
Hence, her approach becomes both critique and care: «Taking distance from a certain technical-possessive gaze is essential».
«Where science risks becoming deaf from an excess of technical listening, we must make room for silence and image, for doubt and slowness, in order to recognise that tremors must first be felt before being analysed».
«In that act lies all my effort to remain human».
How science and spirituality relate
The relationship between science and spirituality has long been a challenge: an ancient, layered topic, yet never fully resolved. Those who study Earth science, however, enjoy a privileged perspective – they explore the planet’s physical depths and, if they wish, may also access the depths of the soul.Picciallo does this, and it is evident in the images she captures: images that express, in a silent scream, the yearning for a new kind of research that does not just record data, but knows how to listen to what vibrates underneath. She calls it «deep monitoring, not just of the planet’s core, but of the human one too».
«Today, we study the Earth only through data, numerical models and rigorous observation. We know how to read earthquakes, measure pressure, anticipate eruptions, but we risk reducing our planet to a mere mechanical object and losing the deeper connection we have with it», Picciallo explains.
The issue is epistemological: to shift our perspective, we need to integrate science and spirituality – but how?
To explore this, Picciallo draws on philosophers and poets whose answers are never straightforward: Simone Weil, who in Human personality1insists on “attention” as a form of prayer and deep listening to reality – an essential quality even for the scientist who truly wants to know; Nietzsche, who in The Gay Science2 calls for the recovery of poetic value; and Fabrizio De André, who with his “cinghiali laureati in matematica pura” (meaning, wild boars holding pure maths degrees)3 speaks of real knowledge as an act of humility, attention and spiritual openness. Through the patience of Szymborska’s “decanted Earth”4 and the words of Rilke5, Franco Loi6, Antonia Pozzi7and finally Brecht8 Picciallo reaches a synthesis: «The Earth shakes, it is not just the ground, it is the human heart».
This is not an attempt to spiritualise technique, but a call for a kind of knowledge able to question itself. A gaze that does not possess, but exposes itself.
Measuring is not knowing
«La Terra è un’anima desolata: an intersection between Earth science and spirituality» belongs to a long lineage of reflections on the relationship between technology and knowledge. But it stands out for its visual power and the accessibility with which it renders a complex subject tangible. One does not need to be a geologist, philosopher or believer to perceive how deeply the Earth is mapped, scanned and modelled using every kind of tool – and how rarely it is truly heard.
Today, the planet is observed and analysed with an ever-growing arsenal: drones, thermal cameras, gravimeters, geophones, gas detectors, volcanic and seismic monitoring systems. These generate a vast amount of data, useful and necessary. But according to Picciallo, there is a risk of losing sight of the deeper meaning behind all this measuring.
«We constantly study every aspect of her: her faults, her waves, her eruptions, but this endless measurement seems to have lost its meaning», says the scientist, warning against a form of “scientific narcissism” already gaining ground, which «hides, behind supposed methodological neutrality, a subtle will to dominate and control».
The solution is not to stop measuring, but to measure differently. At a time when the climate crisis makes every tool of understanding urgent, Picciallo suggests that alongside technical reading we should adopt a symbolic and embodied one, to avoid «measuring everything except ourselves». It is time to value the poetic resonance between geological and inner phenomena, between seismic tremors and existential ones, between the Earth’s faults and the fractures within the human self. In the end, the planet’s geological vulnerability and our human fragility «are mutual echoes of the same condition».
Photography: where knowledge converges
Martina Picciallo’s project does more than stir emotions. It has real-world impact, culturally and socially, both locally and globally. It is designed to speak to many audiences: scientists, philosophers, local communities, and curious observers interested in the Earth and the way it is studied. For the scientific community, it offers a chance to rethink research practices: more integrated, more self-aware, and more open to dialogue with other languages. For communities living in the regions depicted – often marked by seismic or volcanic risk – it can foster a new awareness of their environment, including in educational or tourism contexts.
Picciallo hopes her images can «raise awareness among local inhabitants of the value of their territory, including from a tourism perspective, while also making them more aware of the actual volcanic risks in densely populated areas».
But the true power of her work lies in its ability to reach beyond experts, thinkers and locals. Through photography, it opens up space for awareness, reconnection, and regeneration. Anyone drawn into the visual poetics of La terra è un’anima desolata enters an interdisciplinary world. As Picciallo puts it: «This work can influence our collective imagination, encouraging more integrated visions of humanity – neither purely rational nor purely mystical, but complex, hybrid, poetic».
«In this way, I hope to contribute to the creation of a shared language across disciplines that rarely speak to each other, to inspire new intuitions that may change how we perceive ourselves and the world».
«Photography is anchored in reality, but it evokes the invisible. That is what makes it such a powerful tool for activating dialogue between ways of knowing».
- With reference to: Weil, S. (2014). La persona e il sacro. Adelphi Edizioni spa. (https://www.adelphi.it/libro/978884592736) ↩︎
- Nietzsche and the “Gay Science” concept: https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/la-gaia-scienza_%28Dizionario-di-filosofia%29/ ↩︎
- This is what the singer-songwriter calls men without ideals, without dreams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=ARGpYk4weAU ↩︎
- Wislawa Szymborska and her most powerful verses: Szymborska, W. (2009). La gioia di scrivere: tutte le poesie (1945-2009). https://www.adelphi.it/libro/9788845924002 ↩︎
- Rainer Maria Rilke and his life: https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/rainer-maria-rilke/ ↩︎
- Franco Loi and his verses: https://www.gironi.it/poesia/loi.php ↩︎
- Poetess Antonia Pozzi in her website officially dedicated to her: http://www.antoniapozzi.it/ ↩︎
- Bertold Brecht sings to the Earth: La Chiave Di Sophia. (2024, January 11). “Sventurata la terra che ha bisogno di eroi”. https://www.lachiavedisophia.com/sventurata-la-terra-bisogno-eroi/ ↩︎
