Erosion

In January 2026, alarming footage from the town of Niscemi, Sicily, struck by flooding has circulated internationally. Images of the landslide affecting the medieval borough perched on a hill drew the attention of geologists and geographers worldwide. A similar fate—though subjected to far less media coverage—affects the historic centre of Caulonia, a small Calabrian town and the place of origin of one of the artists. Reflection on erosion as the process by which the earth's surface is gradually worn away through the climatic action of rain and wind becomes a fertile metaphor for the progressive demographic and cultural decline of these territories, which remain unique repositories of cultural and colonial stratification. Erosion as depopulation mirrors the progressive abandonment of these lands by younger generations who emigrate elsewhere in search of stability, leaving behind aging communities and increasingly fragile infrastructures. Furthermore, environmental exploitation and speculative development intensify territorial fragility. Cultural predation operates through the commodification of tradition, dialects and musical forms repackaged for tourist consumption and stripped of their layered historical relevance. As human presence diminishes, so too does the attention needed to sustain the built and natural environment. 'Erosion' is a vocal digital work with moving image addressing the geological urgency of erosion as metaphor for the progressive impoverishment of these territories and their cultural and linguistic legacies. Emerging from a textual collage of endangered local dialects and the Griko language, the piece stems from a sonic form of lamentation. Through stratified vocal and media textures, the work evokes the richness of the cultural inheritances these languages incapsulate while resisting the deterioration processes to which these territories and their idioms are increasingly subjected.