Giorgio, what are the reasons which drove you to undertake a reportage on Piazza Vittorio?
My work is concentrated on this kind of theme, so it was, I should say, a spontaneous choice, that of mixing in the crowd of the greatest ethnic aggregation in the city. The market that was once Piazza Vittorio was a crossroads of different races and colours, along a ring that had its order, its sense. Hundreds of persons came there every day to the centre of that piazza and animated a theatre of life, every one with his or her own language, every one with a particular way of being. Everyone of a different origin, but all in the same place. This was my inspiring shock, but I wished to go beyond the story of how this crowding did not give rise to any corruption , everyone went on his or her way without looking to the left or right of the route. The few contacts between different races which I have witnessed degenerated into dramatic quarrels.
A place of strong emotions, I imagine. What struck you about those looks, about their expressions and life styles?
The thing that struck me most was the number of races present in only one piazza. Those who were selling and those who were buying. For the survival of everyone, every ethnic group created one or two free zones within which they all seemed to recognise each other with a common identity. Traversing the market you naturally did a tour of the great ring, passing through all the subdivided territories within the market, encountering different attitudes, different foods, different colours, different clothes. Everything to me seemed normal, as if it existed tacitly in equilibrium, not visible but there. If one point gave way, the whole castle would crumble. A castle of cards, it struck me.
Perhaps a particular relationship of man with his surroundings. In your opinion, of what sort?
The relationship between the men of that piazza and the same space was very bad. The piazza, to be honest, was becoming a muck heap, a dump for all objects thrown away by stall holders and shoppers. It was becoming a zone of great human intensity and production of refuse right at the centre of the piazza. All round, the inhabitants of the umbertine palaces characteristic of PiazzaVittorio, expressed more and more organised disapproval. Moving the market to a covered site, not far away, has without doubt restored the piazza and the garden to the quarter. Today the piazza is clean, but paraddoxically it has lost its colour, the colours and smells that made it different from all the other piazzas of Rome.
Your work is well known for the social themes it addresses. What is the difference between these subjects and those previously shot?
The difference is not so much in the theme, as in the way of tackling it. Usually the work has a basic draft, an outline to be sketched. In the case of Piazza Vittorio, I let myself be transported by what the place and events suggested from time to time, trying to reflect as little as possible. I trusted to my instinct. It was a project that I carried ahead for three months, going every Saurday. I noticed the street that I was walking and the images that immerged. I rarely filled in any narrative gaps, letting myself be guided by events.
And that is due to the use of a different technique?
I wished to reduce to a minimum the filter of awareness, that which pushes you to compose the image according to pre-ordanied canons and which prevents you shooting the moment you see the image, but immediately after. I did not wish to be a slave either to my vision, or to technique, or to the camera itself. So I have always photographed holding the camera in my hands, at waist level, without ever bringing it to the eye to frame things. I had calculated the exposure in light and shadow and focused the image calculating the distance between subject and eye. I was concerned with capturing the situation without technical and compositional formamalism. I sought to restore a veil of casualness to render it, perhaps, more authentic. I have sought to transform my work into pure visual instinct.
In the immediate future, are you thinking of investigating a theme of this kind?
I returned to face the urban space, with the project "Ostiense Site 2006". I dwelt on the change that the space was undergoing inside the Roman quarter of Ostiense, also here with a mixture of different kinds of architecture of different epochs. But in this case the space was its own container, just because contained, the main subject of images. Man was not an important element, I should say even superfluous. In the case of PiazzaVittorio, instead, the urban space, the Piazza, was a literal container of contents that were in fact human .
A new experience, then. Has it left you with particular memories?
I remember the bustle of the piazza always with great joy, all the colours, dialects,smells, of half the world. That market brought all the world within reach.Photographing and frequenting it more regularly and attentively has made me feel a part of it, of a situation that no longer exists. It makes me feel alittle an orphan, as if an epoch had passed of which I had been a witness. This is what I feel today, now that the market is no longer. I do not retain special human memories, because as I have said before no-one wished to be involved with the others.
