Roma Subalterna

Roma Subalterna

 

Edited by Stefano Graziani and Emanuele De Donno - ViaIndustriae.
Roma Subalterna explores the utopia of creating a guide to Rome.
Starting with colonial echoes, the image of the great city is composed of particles, 'subalterns', autonomies, social forms and architectures. The research draws on unpublished bibliographies, exo-publishing models such as the capital's neighbourhood guides or the adventure diaries on the urban peripheries of the 1990s. Subaltern Rome is a counter-project.
Subaltern Rome is a workshop of the Master in Photography Iuav, in collaboration with the Museum of Civilisations, Ilaria Alpi Italian-African section, ICCD Istituto Centrale del Catalogo e della Documentazione and ViaIndustriae.
The project aims to reflect on the term subaltern as a condition and experience, and not as a category; it is the instrument to trigger a process that leads to a possibility of decolonisation of the gaze.
In my photographic imagery, I decided to use a language of pure illusion. Extrapolating exotic elements such as plants or animals imported to Rome and photographing them in various places in the city such as the Zoological Museum of Civilisations and the Botanical Garden, I wanted to create a surreal atmosphere by relating the imposing, alienating and at times almost alien architecture of the EUR district with plants and animals totally foreign to that land.
Roma Subalterna is a collective work, conceived for an exhibition at MuCiv in Rome and for the publication of a photographic book by Emanuele De Donno's ViaIndustriae publishing house.