Italian artist duo Luca and Lucia draw parallels between their stay in Qantab village in Muscat (Oman) and their quaint home on the remote island of Alicudi, north of Sicily (Italy)

Dr Luca Moretti and Lucia Oliva, a prominent Italian artist duo who have been in and out of Oman several times during the past decade, cannot seem to have enough of the sultanate which has been deeply etched in their hearts and minds…

Giving Oman unique prominence in their new book – With Utmost Adventurousness, which they have begun promoting during an Italian summer tour, the duo is currently on a brief retreat in their home in Alicudi – a small island in the Mediterranean that seems to have slipped beyond the reach of the modern world.

Alicudi is the westernmost and most remote of the Aeolian Islands, a rugged volcanic outcrop of barely five square kilometres, shaped millions of years ago by eruptions beneath the sea. There are no proper roads, no cars and almost none of the conveniences that have come to define contemporary life. Instead, there are stone steps, narrow paths, pack mules and the sea.

It is here, in this improbable setting, that Luca and Lucia have found one of their most enduring sources of inspiration. After more than twenty-five years of travelling the world through their artistic and cultural work, the Italian couple chose Alicudi as a place to retreat and simply live differently. Their small house on the island has become a summer home, creative sanctuary, gathering place, and in many ways, an extension of their artistic philosophy.

For the artists, Alicudi is not merely a beautiful destination, it is a way of life. In winter, only around eighty people remain on the island. In summer, the population rises to a few hundred. There is a small grocery shop, a church and a post office, but Alicudi’s real wealth lies elsewhere – in its silence, its unspoiled landscape, its darkness at night, and in the intensely human connections that develop among people living together on a remote fragment of rock.

That is precisely what attracted Luca and Lucia to Alicudi. For years, the couple had imagined a home by the sea, far from traffic and urban noise, where life could unfold at a different rhythm. The essential requirements were simple – no cars, and the sea within reach.

Then, almost by chance, they came across a photograph of a small house perched on a rocky promontory above the water. They spent a week on Alicudi, fell in love with the place and, by December, signed a deed to acquire it.

A house made of imagination

Today, Luca and Lucia’s Alicudi home is much more than a summer retreat. It has become an intimate expression of the couple’s artistic philosophy and, in a sense, a small museum of upcycled art.

Objects and materials that might once have been discarded have been transformed into furniture, decorations and works of art. Colours, organic forms and unexpected shapes fill the house, creating an environment that feels part studio, part sanctuary and part fairy tale. It is also a place where ideas take shape.

The couple have held workshops, classes and gatherings centred on sustainable living there. The house has provided a setting for cultural projects, theatrical productions, films and festivals, while some of Lucia’s paintings and sculptures have begun their journeys around the world from this remote island.

Alicudi seems to encourage precisely this kind of creativity. Removed from the distractions of ordinary urban life, it becomes a place for looking, thinking and making. Its philosophy is not complicated – life on the island teaches the value of using what one has, reusing what can be saved and resisting waste, not merely for practical reasons, but also out of respect for nature.

The artists describe their home in Alicudi as a place that allows no half measures – you either fall in love with it and forgive its difficulties, or you leave and never return. In their autobiographical book which recounts episodes and behind-the-scenes moments from their long artistic career around the world, they devote a chapter to Alicudi entitled ‘At the End of the World’.

The title has its own family history. Lucia recalls her father speaking of Filicudi and Alicudi as though they lay at the very edge of the known world. For him, despite being from nearby Milazzo, they remained somewhere beyond ordinary experience.

For Lucia and Luca, that sense of remoteness eventually became precisely the attraction.

Distant connection with Oman

There is another thread connecting the flair of the artistic duo on this tiny Mediterranean island with a country thousands of kilometres away – Oman. The new book includes a chapter in which Oman plays a significant role, but the book itself was conceived and nearly completed during their stay in the village of Qantab, whose atmosphere they find, in certain ways, reminiscent of Alicudi. The sea, the rugged landscape, the sense of separation from the hurried world beyond, and a community shaped by its relationship with its surroundings, all draw parallels with Alicudi. It is an intriguing connection. One place lies in the Mediterranean, the other on the Arabian Sea. One belongs to the Aeolian archipelago, the other to the coast of Oman. Yet for these artists, both have become places of belonging and inspiration.