On Saturday, July 12, under the shade of the ancient olive tree, we gathered to share the outcomes of Cultivating Photographs—a project born from the encounter between artist and photographer Almudena Romero (Madrid, 1986) and the plants of the estate during her residency from July 2 to 12, 2025.

After closely observing the variety of botanical species present, Romero selected a few leaves and began a silent dialogue with them. Some became part of a small herbarium; others were used to create two works—one with a stephanotis jasmine leaf and another with a black mulberry leaf—onto which she imprinted the negatives of her hands using the process of chlorophyll photosynthesis during sun exposure. These were then preserved in a natural resin.

“I create by relying on sunlight, without chemicals or inks, applying negatives directly onto leaves that I either expose to sunlight or print onto live plants using a digital projector,” the artist explained.

A deep connoisseur of 19th-century photographic processes, including those involving plants such as photosynthesis and photoperiodism, Almudena Romero produces ephemeral images that in some cases gain longevity through the immersion of leaves in plant-based resin. Her artistic practice offers a critical rethinking of photography, cultivating living images through biological means and using only plant pigments produced via photosynthesis and sunlight.

This project challenges the use of chemicals and traditional cameras, proposing a radical reflection on sustainability and visual ecology in the Anthropocene era. Her creations are not mere visual representations, but performative, autonomous entities whose material transformations question conventional ideas of authorship, permanence, and photographic representation. She proposes a non-extractive, biological approach to photography—deeply rooted in contemporary ecological thinking.

Her image-objects and photographic experiences expand our understanding of both photographic art and the natural world, while redefining photography itself as an ongoing dialogue between art, science, and nature.

The fragile nature of her works introduces a vision of photography as a performative process—serving self-expression and critical reflection, allowing for a broader understanding of the medium. Her image-objects and photographic experiments stretch the boundaries of what photography can be, inviting us into a more profound relationship with the living world.

As part of the residency, on Thursday, July 10 at 6:00 PM, the artist engaged in a public conversation with Maria Rosa Sossai and the community of Castelbuono, held in the cloister of the Minà Palumbo Natural History Museum in Castelbuono.