In these worrying twenties, events are happening one after the other that leave us disturbed and bewildered.
It is not worth listing them: they have been, and are, there for all to see.
What I would like to try to convey, in a way that is alien to rhetoric, is the sense of concern and uncertainty, but also of suspense and anticipation for change, that now involves everyone.
The loss of that security tinged with selfishness that made us perceive our rich and tranquil way of being as the norm for everyone, and it certainly was not, definitive and unquestionable, and even on this the facts are proving us wrong.
Of course, even in our fortunate part of the world those who had eyes to see saw, but the majority lived the preceding years, which we will probably remember as the Belle Epoque of our century, in the blissful certainty that what had been given to our part of the world in terms of peace, wealth and security, could no longer be taken away.
I have tried to render this atmosphere through some images, all taken during 2022, of my city, Rome, hoping to give an indirect account of this atmosphere of anticipation for what is to come; and I have chosen above all ‘outstanding’ images of the less famous and recognisable parts, because cities, especially in the suburbs, all look alike, and if this goes on they risk looking more and more alike: whether they are called Guernica or Leningrad, Coventry or Mariupol, Sarajevo, Aleppo, Nagasaki or Dresden.
