Giuseppe De Mattia

STRADA MAGGIORE 49 (CASA ARCANGELI)
– Strada Maggiore 49 (Arcangeli House) –

Strada Maggiore 49 (Casa Arcangeli) is a project linked to the radical change undergone by an apartment in the historic center of Bologna. A story of suspended time of one of the most important homes of the city’s cultural past. This was the last home of the Arcangeli family: the pianist Nino, the poet Gaetano, the art historian Francesco and the painter Rosalba. Photographs portray the apartment and the traces left in life by this family and, therefore, a “time” that will never return. Giorgio Morandi, Filippo De Pisis, thousands of books, paintings and furniture pieces have passed through these rooms. The portraits of these “natural relocations”, of the footprints left by the Arcangely family, following their moving out of the house, highlight the signs of time on space and, in the same way, become an indelible document through the radical changes of these walls. My work took place between the time when the premises of the Arcangeli house were completely vacated to allow for restoration work, following the changes of its blueprint, turning it into a “normal” home of the historic district. Just another large bourgeois’ apartment. What makes this change eternal is the photographic medium, which bears responsibility for fixing in time and making available forever what no longer exists. Through this work, photography turns what normally would be impossible to see into a searchable format.

Project presented in Giovane Fotografia Italiana #02 | CHANGE