Cieli Sonori. A photographic residency with Mater.

For me, Mater represents a place that deeply embodies the values guiding both my life and photographic practice. In this space of thought and action, I embarked on a journey where photography merged with ecological reflection, listening, and perception, shaping a sensitive and multidisciplinary language.

Cieli Sonori was born from this experience as an intimate and shared journey, weaving together visions, sounds, and relationships with people I deeply admire, with whom I explored new ecologies of sensing. It is a visual investigation where sky, sound, and landscape merge into a perceptual web: each image is a point of resonance, a fragment of silence in which biodiversity—visual, vegetal, and sonic—reveals itself as relation and memory.

The project aims to highlight native plants and Peru’s extraordinary megadiversity, unique in the world. Through these images, it seeks to contribute to scientific dissemination and education on key themes Mater promotes: territorial protection, species knowledge, ancestral wisdom, and food sovereignty.

In many remote communities, the human being is conceived as part of a whole: the individual exists only within the group. This spirit of cooperation and mutual support mirrors the natural harmony of the villages and their surrounding environment.

Left. Bidens Andicola (Kiko Kiko) medicinal plant. Its flowers are used. Known as a dye plant, it’s traditionally used in communities to color wool and textiles.

The flower and the root become symbols of a fragile yet vital balance: they evoke connection, belonging, and care. In this sense, Cieli Sonori invites us to slow down, listen, and recognize the silent richness around us.

Right: Agave americana (inflorescence stalk) — Paqpa (Quechua). An Andean plant with deep traditional roots and multiple uses. Its leaves are used to wash wool, extract strong fibers for ropes and roofing, and produce a sweet syrup when the heart is cooked. Its juice acts as a natural biocide to preserve tubers, and its dried root is used to make rustic furniture.

Left: Maize – Zea mays. Right: Lagenaria siceraria, known as mate or porongo. Traditionally used as a natural container for liquids, food, and tools. Its dried, durable fruit is carved and decorated, forming part of the popular arts in regions like Ayacucho and Lambayeque. Cultivated in home gardens, it helps preserve ancestral knowledge and sustainable practices.

Left: Tree fern (Cyathea or Alsophila spp.). In traditional Peruvian medicine, the plant’s mucilaginous stalk interior—locally known as mocoso or baba—is used as a natural emollient to soothe throat irritation, internal inflammation, or digestive discomfort. It is also applied externally to calm burns or irritated skin.

Here, photography is not just representation but a perceptual act. The landscape becomes vibration, echo, breath. Looking becomes an act of care; listening, a way to enter into a deep relationship with the other —human and non-human alike.

In dialogue with Mater, my gaze transformed: slower, more attentive, more aware. In this threshold place, I found inspiration, but above all, a community with which to imagine new ways of inhabiting and narrating.

Text and photography by Gaia Anselmi Tamburini