A bespoke garden

Biographie

Naples 1978. An adolescence in Rome, followed by studies in International Economics at the Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milan. He has collaborated with the principal Italian and international press agencies. In 2007 he started a project on Down’s Syndrome, which has received a number of distinctions, notably FlashForward from the Magenta Foundation of Canada and the prize, Ojo de Paz, at PhotoEspana, Madrid. Presently he is working on the man-made transformation of the Italian landscape.

Présentation

In 1939, Mirafiori, the FIAT plant, was built on the southern edge of Turin, which provoked a massive internal migration. Between 1953 and 1965 the local population doubled, which dictated the need to construct a new suburban dormitory-style district called "Mirafiori Sud".
These newly created white-collar workers, who had come from the southern countryside of Italy, were constrained to an urban lifestyle. In response to that, and with the desire to renew with their country roots, many of them started creating small allotments on state-owned or private land.
Season after season they moulded the periphery land to their cultivation needs. Nowadays, we find around 700 ‘spontaneous’ allotments which stand for the creativity, persistence and identity of their owners.
Following a renovated interest in urban agriculture, these allotments are now undergoing a transformation process which would finally regulate them, with all the ensuing consequences, often contradictory.
"Curated by Annalisa D'Angelo"