Stefano David, Metropolis, from PRIVATE 37 – an Ecological Question
2004-2005 Italy
The theme of the photographic research Metropolis is not Rome as everybody knows it, with all its artistic and architectural heritage, nor the eternal city with its millenary remains.
Instead, the photos are about our contemporary era, about life inside the complexity of our urban space. A city laid out with roundabouts and street intersections, signs of an advancing modern urban development that aims to bring Rome closer to other metropolises. The frantic growth of the city network, conceived on saving time and space, on modern transportation and on the possibility of connecting distant points, is quickly redefining its ever-changing outskirts. The street network is a vital part of a modern city. It represents its lymphatic system, and everyday millions of people flow in its arteries. At the same time it is also an overlapping of contradictory forms, transforming the city into a transitional space and making it a source of conflict: Rome as the eternal city anchored to its past versus a modern metropolis projected into the future.
The photos of Metropolis want to represent the city starting from its contradictions and the streets of Rome tell the story of “becoming a metropolis”. The pictures are multiexpositions, taken in/with the camera during the shooting.