Prega, lavora, ama
"Prega, lavora, sogna" is a photographic exploration of inspirational stories from the deep outskirts of Rome. The suburbs have always been stereotyped in the sense that we all know, but in this work, I wanted to closely follow (for years) three stories of love on the city's borders. Gregorio is the shepherd of Due Ponti, the northern suburb of the capital. An ex-boxer, he has spent his entire life on the small pasture left to him by his father. Despite the city expanding all around him and all the legal problems of that land, he does not leave his world of waking up at dawn and having almost no comforts to continue his life as a shepherd. He is now immersed in a new urban world, between the bike path where the flock grazes and the sports fields that increasingly enclose him in wild urbanization. On the other hand, Uzi Luke is a trap music artist from Corviale. Despite a difficult family history, he is pursuing his artistic dream of making music. Having achieved a certain popularity, he has decided to stay in the neighborhood to inspire other young people and to use his music to show that another life is possible. Yogi Krishnath, whose real name is Alessandro Pace, is instead a Hindu Baba, who in that religion is the transposition of God on earth. Born in Casal Lumbroso, an extreme suburb of Rome, he lived in India for years to find his inner path. After years of meditation in the caves, he returned to his hometown and founded his earthly paradise where he welcomes disciples and opens up to the Indian and Rom community, of which he has become a Guru. He is the only Italian to have reached this position and receives visits from all over Italy and even abroad, preaching peace, love, and kindness. In this project, I tried to approach the topic of suburbs in a different way from usual, in a way that reaches beauty and not just the ugliness that often characterizes these places. There is a lot hidden in these human masses.