To be a Volcano

In 2025, Sara was privileged to experience close encounters with a series of Italian and Sicilian volcanoes and those that form the Aeolian Island archipeligo. 

Alberto, born and raised on the slopes of ‘Mama Etna’, guided Sara to the lateral craters, where she witnessed the start of a new period of Strombolian activity. Gas clouds were released from the fresh crater, felt through her body as earth tremors. The sonic booms of the emissions were followed by lava flows.  Volcanoes are places where the earth truly lives and breathes. Reimagining their history as destructive creatures, their capacity to reshape the land when the time is right, spilling more nutrient-rich minerals onto the newly formed land is also undeniable.

These works explore what it is to be a volcano. Feeling the sulphurous breath of the earth, watching her move; these works adopt the animist view of the volcano as a living being. Trekking the winding paths to the craters, we can never surmount a volcano but feel the awe of the living earth.

This series of works were exhibited in ’Elemental’, an exhibition curated by Malcolm Ashman and Stephen Jacobson, in The Kenny Gallery, Royal West of England Academy of Art, Bristol 2026