An international exhibition celebrating science in the developing world through photography opened today at the Embassy of Brazil in Rome, with a winning essay documenting how Peruvian Andean communities are using a combination of ancestral knowledge and modern science to adapt to worsening droughts.
The exhibition, titled “Through Southern Lenses: Science in Focus,” runs at the Galleria Candido Portinari in Palazzo Pamphilj until June 19, 2026, with free admission. It is promoted by the Conrado Wessel Foundation (FCW) in partnership with The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), a programme unit of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) dedicated to strengthening scientific capacity in the global South.
At the centre of the exhibition is the winning photo essay “Planting Water” by Peruvian documentary photographer Musuk Nolte, selected from submissions representing 26 countries across four continents. The essay documents a revived ancestral practice in the Cusco region of Peru, where communities collect rainwater during the wet season in wells that slowly release it into the subsoil during dry months. The technique is now paired with the planting of the native Queñual shrub, which improves water infiltration, and with modern seed adaptation methods, creating what the photographers and organisers describe as a bridge between traditional and contemporary knowledge systems.
The prize theme for the inaugural edition, “Glaciers and Deserts,” invited photographers to document the visible impacts of climate change on communities in developing countries. TWAS Executive Director Marcelo Knobel said photographers carry a unique responsibility in the current moment. “Photographers have the unique power to move people to act through the images they capture,” he said.
The international jury that selected the winning essay included Olubukola Oluranti Babalola, TWAS Vice President for Africa and Professor at North-West University in South Africa, and Ogechi Ekeanyanwu, Regional Coordinator for Sub-Saharan Africa at SciDev.Net, giving the jury a strong African scientific voice.
FCW President Carlos Vogt said entries from 26 countries confirmed that the prize had become a genuine global platform from its first edition. The exhibition also features photo essays by three recipients of the FCW Photography Prize, a separate Brazilian award with past themes covering climate change, computer sciences and national identity.
Nolte, a National Geographic Explorer currently developing a long-term project on South American water systems, described the recognition as an opportunity to raise global awareness about the transformation of vulnerable geographies and the communities living through it.
