Lipari, Vulcano, Salina, Alicudi, Filicudi, Panarea, Stromboli – poetic names for the seven islands that, seen from the coast of Sicily, seem to float like tiny mirages in the haze of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Names that immediately recall unforgettable films: rebellious women like Anna Magnani in Vulcano and Ingrid Bergman in Stromboli, or the irresistible Massimo Troisi as Il Postino on Salina. Islands with their rugged, wild beauty as metaphors for inner landscapes – the ultimate drama queens. None of these seven volcanoes, once risen from the sea, resembles the other. Georg Tappeiner and I explored them all on long hikes, together yet each on our own. Photography and writing are solitary jobs. And yet we experienced the same thing: landscapes so powerful and primordial, and at the same time made fragile and full of longing by nothing but light, can simply swallow you whole.

Ursula Demeter