Architecture and landscape photographer Francesco Luciani documents the beauty and resilience of nature as well as the effect of mining activities in the ongoing series “Marble District”. The images, taken in an area located between the villages of Apricena and Poggio Imperiale, in the north of Puglia, Italy, capture the captivating story of human intervention in a natural environment and the scars left on the land after the abandonment of the marble mining sites.

The photographs reveal various stages of mining, from the initial creation of the industrial sites, to the quarrying of the valuable material, and finally to the abandoned areas which are slowly being reclaimed by nature. The irrevocably changed landscape is now defined by the traces of human activity, yet hope is alive here. “Left behind are the evidences of the exploitation of resources but also a possible healing found in their abandonment, as the nature begins to re-mold the spaces into new creations of haunting beauty combining the industrial and the natural”, says the photographer. Using a large format camera, Luciani captured the landscape through panoramic views and gorgeously detailed images that reveal the striking contrast between precise cuts and clean lines on one side and the raw features of the land on the other. Changed forever, the area has gained a special kind of beauty. Complex, scarred and ultimately triumphant.