Most human beings like to eat and drink, especially in company, and conviviality is one of the joys of life that people are less willing to give up, even in difficult conditions.
It is therefore natural that as soon as the situation permits, as between two waves of a pandemic when the restrictions on sociability are eased, people start to meet again around a laid table, perhaps hesitantly and with some concern.
In the photos I am presenting here, taken mostly in Rome between late 2020 and now, I have tried, in a light-hearted tone, to convey the ambivalence of this re-appropriation: pleasure but with a hint of fear, which may be reflected in a sidelong glance, a doubtful expression on the faces of the diners, rather than from the arrogant attitude of those who drink alone.
In these portraits of friends or strangers, I have tried to render that slight sensation of still being out of place, of precariousness, as if what one is indulging in is a brief recreation: the moment suspended between a past that does not pass and the foreboding of a future that for many other reasons is even more alarming.
