The soil is a living ecosystem that covers the earth from which we obtain 95% of our food: a very thin layer (70-200 cm, if compared to the earth's surface) which, like a skin, protects the planet from sudden changes in temperature, atmospheric variations, sequesters carbon more than forests, contains enormous biodiversity, retains water, processes vital energy... It is actually 30 cm that makes the Planetary Garden possible from which we all feed ourselves and in particular the first fertile 5-10 cm of humus. Soil is a NON-renewable resource that we are consuming at incredible rates.

The work “5 cm” therefore also represents a period of time: a thousand years placed at the height of our eyes. A horizontal hourglass. A thousand years in which everyone, women and men of different religions, cultures, languages, nationalities have been able to feed themselves.

«Soil is thickness, volume, body, never surface. Five centimeters, thirty centimeters, one hundred centimeters: it doesn't matter how much, but soil is thickness. Reducing it to the surface means denying its identity, role, life, functions. Representing its thickness is an act of restoring the truth to the eyes of those who will see it. If the things of nature are not seen for what they are, we end up considering them only for the use we make of them. Doing so is already the beginning of the end…»

Reflections by Prof. P. Pileri on «5 cm»