Vetrine
Vetrine (2010) is a project that celebrates local resistance to international trends of homogenization, focusing on a unique aspect of contemporary Roman culture: street vitrines — display cases found all over the city, across different neighborhoods. They transform Rome into an open museum and reveal the desires, traditions and needs of the Romans, and the sensibility of the city as a whole.
I was intrigued by the pictorial qualities of the vitrines, their exquisite, sometimes surreal compositions that quietly affirm a non-globalized form of commerce. Vetrine pays homage to the French photographer Eugène Atget and his photographs of Parisian storefronts in the early 20th century. Atget wanted to capture these displays before department stores replaced small independent stores, and in doing so he preserved a part of French culture. Like Atget, I photographed in the early hours, before the stores opened and the streets became crowded with tourists.
