For Romans, writing about Rome is an impossible task. Seeing Rome could be difficult too. Some would suggest this is the result of Romans’ lack of knowledge about the city, and it might be true, but a doubt lingers on me. Do Romans really know nothing about Rome or are they too busy living it, or surviving it? Reflecting on my hometown, the fruitful, quite naïve, observation of outsiders may come at handy. For years, the Festival Internazionale di Roma, the biggest photography festival organized in the eternal city, used to commission international photographers to photograph Rome using their own styles, offering new visions and insights that might have been hidden to locals. During the whole run of the Rome Commission, I asked myself why the assignment wasn’t given to roman photographers but I also cherished, quite frankly, looking at Rome through the eyes of Josef Koudelka, Simon Roberts, Graciela Iturbide, Tod Papageorge, just to name a few. I let myself wallow in the excitement of discovering an outsider’s view.

I wonder what the Rome Commission would look like today if it was still in place. Would it still commission foreigners? And would it be right to do so? Current debates of what’s right to photograph or not, how close photographers should be to the community they choose to portray, or who is entitled to do so, may deliver a totally different outcome. Regardless, observing Rome is not an easy task. How do you picture the millennial history that comes with it? What is there that hasn’t already been photographed? What can you add to the thousands of photographs that circulate online? And why would you even want to add?

As I consume myself with all these questions, and research what is happening in the city, what’s there to be photographed, I, accidentally, turn my eyes to those artists who were indeed born in Rome, but have decided to leave at some point, distancing themselves from the city.

It’s in this estranged, yet familiar gaze, that I see a pattern and recognize myself. For this second iteration of the column, where I highlight the work of young artists, I asked Fabrizio Amoroso, Paolo Di Lucente and Giovanna Petrocchi, to send me photographs that were either inspired by Rome or represented the hidden beauty of it. What I appreciate about their work is the common pursue of a contemporary vision. Fabrizio Amoroso uses the medium of photography in different ways. His practice revolves around the research of photography archives constructing new narratives out of them, as in his forthcoming book Ore 12 Circa. He also investigates the odds and rituals of familiar scenes, creating allegorical still lives or quirk ironic portraits that leave a sense of disquiet. He’s represented by The Honey Pump in New York City. Paolo Di Lucente works between London and Rome, focusing on an extensive research of light, shadows and shapes. Both in his commissions and personal projects, Di Lucente’s photographs, imbued with warm, vivid colours, often capture humans inhabiting the space and how their physical presence defines the interstitial moments of everyday life. His forthcoming book Rome is an ode to the eternal city through images of different towns called Rome in the Unites States. Giovanna Petrocchi is an artist working at the intersection of photography and collage. She studied in London, first at the London College of Communication and then at the Camberwell College of Arts, where she shaped her artistic vision, strongly inspired by archaeology and sculpture. She combines her photographs with hand-made collages, found imagery and 3D prints to create oneiric and surreal worlds, discarding or subverting our idea of what ancient means or represents. By shaping otherworldly scenarios, she merges futuristic and historical elements, liberating the viewer from a defined idea of time and space. Her work has been recently included in the project FUTURES Photography 2021 by CAMERA, in Turin, and she’s also working on her first book that will include the series Sculptural Entities.

I asked all the artists to answer some questions to get to know them better. The selection of their photographs defies the perception of our museum-like city by letting us see Rome through a contemporary lens.