With his photographs Tommaso Protti connects the reality of historical and monumental Rome, often a major metaphor of the universal, with the raw and harsh reality of contemporary Rome which expands more and more every year from its center.

Protti’s photography is documentary, it leads us without metaphorical embellishments to the metropolitan capital city of Rome with over 4 million inhabitants. The story, however, occupies the temporal space of night: his photographs are not dark for an aesthetic whim, but to remind the historic city of Rome of the oblivion which too frequently encompasses its suburbs and inhabitants.

Protti reminds us that photographs can also recount people, their lives, aspirations and feelings.

The stories he tells of the suburbs invite us once again to consider photography as a means of exchanging knowledge and getting to know realities other than ours. They remind us that the testimony of photographers can bring to our attention fragments or realities otherwise hidden from our eyes and our conscience.

In the images that Protti offers us it is evident that, in spite of the efforts of the institutions, much still needs to be done to reduce the difference in opportunities and access that the inhabitants of the suburbs experience compared to those of the historical neighborhoods.

Protti’s narrative approach, based on the authentic sharing of experience with the subjects photographed, leaves little room for doubts on the authenticity of the stories he tells.

And he invites us with his stark black and whites to embrace and understand a different and wider vision of Rome.

This work was commissioned by the Commissione Roma per la Fotografia and exhibited at the Mattatoio Museum as part of the exhibition Fotografia. Nuove Produzioni 2020 per la Collezione Roma.

Francesco Zizola