Over the past eight months, I’ve got closer to volcanoes than I ever have in my entire life. I promised to write a text for the blog of Metagoon back in March, but I never managed it. Partly due to lack of time, partly because I couldn’t find inspiration relating to the Venetian Lagoon and water in my thoughts: it feels like everything has already been said. Being a generally undisciplined person, I often find that once I have made a commitment to Something, that Something stops exciting me. So, returning to Venice from Greece as the EasyJet flight came in to land, without even looking at the lagoon from the window (as I would normally do), I started writing some reflections on the most exciting encounters of this year: the ones I had with volcanoes.

A volcano can be up to 150 million years old, and of the 11 largest volcanoes in the world, two are in Italy (Etna and Stromboli). I just returned from a Greek volcanic island called Nysiros, and from above, it’s small and round and toasted like a biscuit. The beaches of Nysiros are wild, the seabed is black because its stones are large and dark, and the water is soft like velvet. Eleni and I went down into the crater, which also has a name. Its name is Stefanos and it’s sprinkled with hints of yellow and red sulphurous dust. The rest is a lunar landscape, which reminded me of the steppes of Mongolia where no life has grown for millions of years, everything there is just as the dinosaurs left it. The smell is putrid but it doesn’t offend me, in fact I find it magnetic. The volcano sleeps but the fumarolic vents emit steam hotter than summer in the Anthropocene era. We walk, trying to be soft. The ground is soft, like the skin that forms on milk when it heats up. We are alone in the mouth of a sleeping, living volcano, and we feel like queens. They say the sulfuric gases emitted from volcanic vents can cause skin irritation and breathing difficulties. But I felt myself sinking into a sweet and familiar magma.

A month ago Matteo and I were in Catania, in the San Giovanni Li Cuti neighborhood, for the mycto.forme festival. Before leaving, Bruna warned us that Catania airport was in chaos due to a storm caused by Etna. Nonetheless, we managed to land. Catania was covered in black ash that the volcano had spewed out over the previous days. Black on the sidewalks, on the cars, on the asphalt of the streets. For the people of Catania this was nothing out of the ordinary: Mother Etna spits out dirt, and it just feels like home. This is what Angelo told us. At sunset, Matteo, Anja, Teresa, and I bathed in the bay of San Giovanni, Catania’s small but important fishing village. There are overturned fishing crates that some ladies use to sit and read. There are parasoles brought along from home, and children are entering the water for the last and most beautiful swim of the day, to see the sun soaking into the sea. Lots of kids are there for the festival, and Bruna invites us to take a quick swim – in Venice you would call it a tociada – before starting the evening. “Come on, dive in, just 5 minutes and then we’re off!” She says this with the same kind of nonchalance that might apply were she telling us to wash our hands before sitting down at the table for dinner.

Being near a volcano weighed me down, it held me back and firecly anchored me to a place of memory. I had a hard time pushing this feeling away. In Nysiros, and in Catania, I felt present and insistent on the place in a conscious, happy way. I’m wary of suggesting here that volcanoes have some kind of potent energy, but maybe the powerful sense of alienation that volcanoes provoked in me, precisely because they are so unfamiliar, means that I was forced into an extraordinary state of intimacy.

You may wonder why this first text for the Metagoon’s Ardór is my reflection on the volcanoes I have seen, and the answer is not just because I am undisciplined. I found part of the answer in the preface of Ocean by Steve Mentz, which I read in Aci Trezza, with Etna behind me and with the sea stacks in front. Mentz evokes the often cited The Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, underlining something that, to my surprise, I found anything but trivial. The city that Marco Polo sees time and time again in all the others he passes through, is Venice. However this is not because it is unique (which it undoubtedly is), nor because it is the city he comes from. What strikes him is that Venice has a relationship with water based on intimacy. I hadn’t thought about this before.

Through interviews the voices of Metagoon describe a relationship with water based not just on everyday life, but also on an intimate, personal, and attentive bond. I think of the CMV Panfido project, in which tugboat pilots explain how their days are marked by continuous interaction with the lagoon, both during the transport of goods and in small daily activities. This work is also an act of profound connection with the environment. Ugo, a lagoon historian, describes the geological formation of the Venice lagoon and the influence of human activities on it in great detail. His story offers a long-term perspective on the relationship between humans and this ecosystem, highlighting a sense of responsibility for its conservation. Scientist Davide Tagliapietra explores the profound link between the lagoon and mountain environments, creating a surprising analogy between apparently distant ecosystems. This bond is based on a sensorial perception of the lagoon, which according to him is constantly changing, with variations in colour, scent, and silence, which mark moments of environmental and personal transformation. The proximity to these volcanoes made me think about the lagoon a lot, about its changes, and I wondered why. Then, listening to Tagliapietra’s words again, I found an explanation. Through the metaphor of the mountain, Tagliapietra showed how these two ecosystems, although distant, share a complexity of similar ecological dynamics and adaptations. So, the discovery of a new landscape, this volcanic one, has perhaps rekindled in me a new interest in my Here.

What do lagoons and volcanoes have in common?

From a morphological point of view, even volcanoes sink into the water. In the 24th January 2025 edition of Internazionale, I read that, according to a study published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, in the next century the melting of Antarctica’s glaciers could cause the eruption of more than one hundred subglacial volcanoes on the continent. The decrease in the weight of the ice actually reduces the pressure on magma chambers, allowing the magma contained within to expand. Furthermore, the heat from such eruptions could in turn accelerate melting, triggering a self-sustaining cycle. From a practical point of view, about 60 km from Venice, we find the Euganean Hills, which can be seen when heading towards the Southern Lagoon. They are ancient inactive volcanoes that formed about 40 million years ago. Their volcanic rock, such as trachyte and basalt, was widely used in the Serenissima for paving and buildings: calli, campielli, and even Piazza San Marco. But Venice and volcanoes share a fundamental characteristic: both are complex ecosystems, shaped by constantly changing natural forces. The Venetian Lagoon, with its fragile balance between land and water, is in a state of constant change due to the movement of its waters; whereas volcanoes and their cycle of eruptions and lava deposits shape the landscapes around them. Both environments require considerable adaptation from the species that inhabit them. The people who live there must also develop a deep connection with these natural cycles to understand and respect their dynamism. The intimacy of the inhabitants of these lands led me to reflect on an analogy that seems anything but superficial to me. These natural elements are extraordinary, yet they are also threatening. The volcano can explode and burn. The lagoon’s waters can rise, flood and corrode. To know that the environment you live in could be inhospitable at any moment. It could chase you away, render you fragile. These things remind me that you don’t live in places like this to be comfortable, and that you like to feel alert, to be on the threshold, more than you think. And above all, that things change to stay alive.

Intimacy wins over fear, and becomes familiar.

[Translation from Italian: Joe Sartorius]