Paths
2015 – ongoing
Climbs and descents, valleys and torrents, centuries-old traditions and cultures. Paths and waterways once navigable. Enduring traces etched into the landscape of the province of Reggio Calabria, a land that formed part of ancient Magna Graecia, where the “Grecanico” language was gradually suppressed, despite the inhabitants’ choice to look towards the mountains rather than the sea. Traces of a collective memory, deeply rooted in the culture of the Strait area.
The Grecanico area
Reggio Calabria is one of the southernmost cities in Italy, with a history that begins around 720 BC and is intertwined with numerous cultures. It was a colony of Magna Graecia in which — as in the case of other cultures and communities living in Calabria, such as the Albanian and the Occitan — the language spoken at the time developed independently of modern Greek. The use of Grecanico was gradually replaced over the centuries, and was strongly opposed and almost eradicated during the Fascist period, despite the fact that the inhabitants of the Grecanico area continued to prefer it.
Villages were almost completely emptied as a result of floods and environmental problems, but also because of a policy aimed at greater control of the territory and, finally, because of depopulation and emigration. Whole communities have been uprooted from their land and relocated to new urban centres near the sea.
Exhibition project
The book
- Years
- 2015 – ongoing
- Place
- Area grecanica, province of Reggio Calabria, Italy
- Origin
- Self-initiated
- Outcomes
- 2026 · Solo exhibition · Gakuenmae Art Festa, Nara, Japan
- 2026 · Selected · Paper Photo Dummy Award 2026 exhibition, Paper Photo Festival, Sosnowiec, Poland — 31 publications selected out of 160 entries from 38 countries
- 2026 · Photobook exhibition · Photobook Award 2026, Encontros da Imagem, Festival Internacional de Fotografia e Artes Visuais, Biblioteca Lúcio Craveiro da Silva, Braga, Portugal, with Paths
- 2026 · Photobook exhibition · Paper Photo Dummy Award 2026, Paper Photo Festival, Zamek Sielecki — Sosnowieckie Centrum Sztuki, Sosnowiec, Poland, with Paths
- 2026 · Photobook exhibition · Gakuenmae Art Festa, Nara, Japan, with Paths
- 2026 · Photobook exhibition · Cosecha 2026, XIII Fiebre Photobook Fest, Laboratorio de La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain, with Paths
- 2026 · Finalist · Photobook Award 2026 by Encontros da Imagem, Festival Internacional de Fotografia e Artes Visuais
- Book
- Self-published as a dummy · May 2026
- Format
- 22.5 × 31 cm
- Pages
- 84
- Binding
- Coptic stitch, exposed spine
- Cover
- Fedrigoni Sirio Color Sabbia 700 gsm; title hand-painted through a stencil, so that every copy differs slightly. The digital edition is set on GF Smith Harvest Ripple 1400 gsm
- Interior
- Mohawk Superfine Eggshell White 148 gsm
- Inserts
- Pictorico Ultra Premium OHP transparent film 184 gsm: three colour photographs printed on film; turning the page reveals the black-and-white photograph underneath
- Endpapers
- Fedrigoni Materica Clay 180 gsm
- Typefaces
- Bembo Book MT Pro · Akzidenz-Grotesk Next
- Printer
- LaLegatoria, Rome
- Texts
- Alessandro Mallamaci, with tale IX from Racconti Greci di Roccaforte, gathered by Luigi Bruzzano and Ettore Capialbi and published in Monteleone in 1885 — printed in Grecanico with an English translation on transparent film
- Photographs
- 44 photographs, 2015–2026
- Design
- Alessandro Mallamaci
