Through this five-year research project, which began with “Parallel Eyes” and culminated in “Altera Italia”, the visual artist critically examines the way in which southern Italy was portrayed by anthropological and documentary photography between the 1950s and 1960s. The project’s title draws on the Latin term altera, meaning ‘the other of the two’, and suggests a shift in perspective: not a representation constructed from the outside, but the possibility of a situated narrative, capable of moving beyond the stereotypical and fixed images that have long defined the collective imagination of the South. Analogue and digital interventions breathe new life into archive images, placing them in dialogue with new photographs dedicated to contemporary rituals and re-establishing continuity between past and present.
The exhibition layout mirrors the structure of the editorial project and follows its narrative flow. Archival material and contemporary photographs are interwoven within a narrative, constructed using the artist’s own words, which guides the visitor through places, rituals and images, recreating the immersive nature of the research. Far from a folkloric or taxonomic interpretation, the ritual emerges as a living practice, still capable of producing meaning in the present. The investigation thus focuses on the relationship between image, memory and territory, offering new perspectives on the ways in which identity, a sense of belonging and transformation continue to redefine the contemporary South.
