edited by Maurizio Buttazzo
The Marsico family’s nomadic history began in the early 1900s with Nicola, a travelling entertainer who soon decided to found the Marsico Circus. Nicola, together with his family, toured Europe entertaining thousands of people: clowns, trapeze artists, acrobats, lion tamers… everyone in the family learnt the art of the circus and show business. Towards the end of the 1960s, the Marsico family’s line of work changed; they decided to become fairground operators, a trade they still practise regularly today, 50 years on. Their endless travels around the world seem to come to an end when Domenico, Nicola’s son, buys a plot of land in San Cesario di Lecce, a small village in Puglia. After almost a century, their nomadic lifestyle is about to change; but can a plot of land really alter the history and spirit of those who have made the world their home? *Marsico – Down on the Street* is the result of two years of photographic research that chronicles the family’s life by tracing a typical day, from morning to night. The long journeys and the hardest work, but also moments of respite in the caravans, family celebrations and nights spent at the funfair, offering a close-up look at an ancient trade that has almost always remained alien to the middle-class world and its rules.
Andrea Ciccarese
Andrea Ciccarese was born in Lecce, Italy, in 1989. In 2014, he co-founded the photography studio ‘Zerosettanta’, specialising in reportage, interior photography and fine art printing. In 2017, he completed his photographic project *Pompeii*, a body of work on the ancient Roman city which won first prize at the Exposure Photography Festival in Calgary, Canada. That same year, he moved to Boston, USA, to devote himself to his personal photographic research. ‘America’s Corners’ emerged from his experience of living in the United States and became an installation comprising sounds and images. In 2019, he returned to Italy and worked on the project *Marsico–Down on the Street*, a reportage on the life of one of Italy’s oldest families of fairground entertainers, the Marsicos. He currently lives and works between the United States and Italy.
