VI.(Field Note) SalinaPhilip Samartzis
(Reading time, 8m42s)Preface
Salina occupies the central Aeolian archipelago north of Sicily. Formed by six extinct volcanoes, the island has supported cultivation and settlement for centuries. Although volcanic activity ceased thousands of years ago, the island continues to be shaped by natural processes. Steep topography, prolonged summer drought, limited freshwater and dependence on the sea continue to shape patterns of habitation and adaptation. Leandro and I undertake a week of fieldwork in partnership with amaneï, a cultural organisation based in Santa Marina Salina. Through sustained listening and observation, these field notes examine how people continue to inhabit and adapt to an island shaped by geology, climate and the sea.
Habitation
Each morning I wake shortly before 5.00am and walk upstairs to the rooftop terrace. Across the Tyrrhenian Sea Stromboli occupies the eastern horizon, approximately an hour away by hydrofoil. Before sunrise the summit intermittently glows as incandescent lava rises above the crater terrace before disappearing once more. Afterwards only a narrow plume of smoke remains. On still mornings it rises almost vertically into the sky. When the wind changes it streams eastwards across the sea. Without intending to, watching the volcano becomes part of my daily routine.
Leandro and I spend a week at amaneï, a cultural organisation based in the centre of Santa Marina Salina. Our apartment occupies part of a large nineteenth-century house overlooking the island's main street. Adjacent to the apartment, separated by a narrow lane, pale limestone walls appear almost hallucinatory beneath the Mediterranean sun. Inside, patterned tiled floors, worn smooth by generations of use, extend through interconnected rooms with high ceilings and tall shuttered windows. Built-in shelves remain filled with books, bottles, kitchen utensils and domestic objects. A large wooden wash trough stands beside one window overlooking the street. In another, a typewriter rests within the deep reveal. Although the house now accommodates artists and researchers, little else appears to have changed. For a week we inhabit a domestic interior that still carries the presence of those who once lived there.
Matteo Brizio, who runs Tesoro on the ground floor, tells me the house was originally built as a carpenter’s workshop and family home. After several members of the family died during the Spanish influenza pandemic it was abandoned, remaining largely untouched until its recent restoration as an artist residency. Many of the domestic objects and fixtures remain in their original locations, while others have been carefully introduced to preserve the character of the house. The distinction is difficult to determine.
Throughout the week apartment doors and windows remain open. From the balcony I hear the settlement more often than I see it. Shortly before sunrise several cats begin fighting in a nearby courtyard outside my bedroom window. Their screeches briefly cut through the architecture before abruptly ceasing. Throughout the afternoon Leandro writes in the adjoining room while I log sounds from the apartment. Directly opposite, the church bells are piercing. Their sound reverberates between the surrounding buildings before fading. Sounds continually enter the apartment from directions that remain hidden, revealing the spatial organisation of the town.
Santa Marina extends around a small harbour on the island's eastern coast. Beyond the harbour the town rises steeply into the volcanic slopes. Hydrofoils arrive from Lipari, Stromboli and Milazzo before departing again within minutes. Ferries reverse slowly onto the wharf as vehicles, freight and passengers are exchanged with practised efficiency. Fishing boats return throughout the morning while pleasure craft occupy the outer berths. Several times during the week a water tanker berths alongside the harbour before thick blue hoses are connected to the island's storage system. Days earlier I had watched the same operation from Ficogrande on Stromboli.
One afternoon I make a two-hour hydrophone recording in the harbour. Hydrofoils, ferries, fishing boats and pleasure craft all converge on the same section of the wharf to refuel or pick up and drop off passengers. The fuel station accommodates only two vessels at a time. The remainder wait throughout the harbour and just beyond its entrance, continually repositioning themselves as space becomes available before giving way to arriving hydrofoils and ferries. Small inflatable boats weave between them collecting passengers for neighbouring islands and beaches. Standing on the dock, the harbour master directs the continual movement, occasionally fining pilots attempting to moor where they should not. Beneath the surface the hydrophones record the same choreography. Engines overlap. Propellers engage and reverse. Water surges in different directions as vessels advance, turn and back away before another immediately takes their place. The apparent confusion is sustained through constant negotiation.
Beyond the ferry terminal people spread towels directly across rounded black volcanic cobbles before lying in the sun for several hours. From a distance the beaches appear almost empty despite the middle of summer. The rocks look impossibly uncomfortable, yet nobody seems troubled by them. Others settle between larger boulders before entering the water.
Over the following days Leandro and I drive around the island. The road repeatedly climbs before descending towards another harbour or village. Sharp bends briefly reveal Stromboli beyond the eastern coastline before another ridge conceals it once more. Deep road cuttings expose successive bands of lava, ash and volcanic breccia. Elsewhere erosion has incised steep ravines through older deposits. Dry-stone terraces built from the same volcanic rock follow the contours almost to the upper slopes, where vineyards give way to Mediterranean scrub. Cultivation rarely conceals the island's geology. It adapts to it.
In Lingua we walk around the former salt pans that gave Salina its name. The shallow basins remain clearly legible despite the industry having disappeared many decades earlier. Their geometry sits beside the sea, separated by low embankments and stone walls. Although only a short distance from the harbour, the area is almost devoid of sound. No insects occupy the grasses. Few birds cross the water.
I continue towards the lighthouse where large concrete breakwater blocks protect the shoreline. I make a recording as incoming waves break against the concrete blocks before surging through the spaces between them. Rather than arriving as a single advancing front, the water approaches from multiple directions, producing an unusually broad and constantly shifting acoustic space.
Near Pollara I stop beside a vineyard to make a recording. Cicadas occupy almost every shrub and tree. Individual calls disappear into a dense continuous field extending across the hillside. Wind occasionally moves through the vines before being absorbed by the surrounding vegetation. Nearby, abandoned stone buildings stand among cultivated terraces while neighbouring vineyards continue to be worked. A weathered sculpture commemorating the film Il Postino overlooks the village.
In the centre of the island we stop at the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Terzito, built on the saddle between Salina's two volcanic cones. Two gardeners tend the grounds while a Carabiniere watches from nearby. I set up my microphones beside the entrance. One carefully pushes an electric lawn mower across the dusty ground while the other rakes leaves and fallen branches beneath the trees. The cicadas are deafening. I step inside the church for respite from the afternoon sun. The interior is dark and cool. I suddenly feel alone on the island.
Near Malfa we visit the former Marchetti house. From the road little suggests its scale. Beyond the entrance, rooms open one into another before extending towards terraces overlooking the sea. Books remain on shelves. Records occupy cabinets beside a turntable. Family photographs, letters and domestic objects cover tables and walls. Nothing appears arranged for display. The house retains the accumulated presence of several generations. Built during a period when Salina's vineyards generated considerable wealth, it reflects the success of a family whose marble quarries supplied stone to the United States. The subsequent decline of the vineyards following disease transformed the island's economy, but the house remains as evidence of that earlier more prosperous period.
As the week progresses, heat haze increasingly obscures Stromboli until only a faint outline remains visible across the sea.
Fireworks
Two days after our arrival Santa Marina celebrates the feast of its patron saint. Much of the preparation is already complete. Temporary lighting spans the main street. Traffic has been redirected away from the church and harbour. Stalls selling food, sweets and religious objects occupy the footpaths. By late afternoon more passengers arrive than depart as ferries and hydrofoils continue crossing between the neighbouring islands.
At 7.30pm the church bells begin ringing. They continue almost without interruption. At irregular intervals explosions sound high above the town. From the balcony overlooking the main street I begin recording. Before the procession reaches the apartment, I hear it approaching through the narrow streets.
Several minutes later the statue of Saint Marina appears, carried on long timber poles by members of the community. White lilies almost conceal its base. Civic officials wearing the Italian tricolour follow behind, then the brass band. Brass, woodwind and percussion pass beneath the balcony one section at a time while the bells continue ringing overhead. Residents watch from balconies while others step from doorways to join the procession as it continues towards the harbour.
At midnight I return to the rooftop terrace to record the fireworks. They are launched from the harbour approximately five hundred metres away, leaving an unobstructed view across Santa Marina. For almost eleven minutes successive explosions produce a broad range of sounds. Some open with short, hard cracks before dissolving into dense fizzing starbursts. Others are preceded by descending whistles that bend in pitch as burning fragments fall back towards the harbour. Several produce deep concussions felt through the chest before expanding across the town. High-frequency whistles and sustained fizzing alternate with low-frequency concussions, each explosion possessing its own distinct acoustic signature.
I receive the initial concussion directly from the harbour. A moment later the same explosion returns from behind me, delayed by the buildings surrounding the apartment and the volcanic slopes rising above Santa Marina. What begins as a single event separates into successive arrivals reaching the rooftop from different directions. Reflections overlap with the descending whistles and the sustained fizzing of the starbursts until individual explosions become difficult to distinguish. For several minutes the material and spatial structure of the settlement becomes audible. Each explosion briefly exposes the acoustics of its streets, buildings and volcanic topography before the next reshapes them once again.
With the final explosion the acoustic field collapses. The absence is almost tangible.
I let the recorder run for another minute before pressing stop.