In the last weeks of the quarantine, I’ve started to go for a walk each time exploring another part of the city, at times walking for hours, at times returning home in 40 minutes. This practice which is close to flâneuring yet different allowed me to deal with distress created by social isolation but also to assess specific changes into the urban landscape.
As a result, I have documented 9 walks pinning each photo to the map and indicating the exact time when it has been taken. Each itinerary demonstrated the limits of my physical capacity to walk and explore the city on foot. At the same time, the photos represent the city of Palermo without its people posing a number of questions. Whether it’s still Palermo being emasculated in this brutal way or it’s the people who constitute its flesh and blood? Being stripped down from the daily recklessness has its exquisite architecture purified? How do we inhabit public spaces and animate them with our presence?
Consequently, the book The City that No One Has Seen (89books, Palermo) has been published and launched in June 2020.
