Alessandro, can you tell me a little bit about the land where you grew up, and what memories do you have of those places and that season?

Alessandro Zanoni (AZ): I grew up in the province of Cremona on the border with the provinces of Brescia, Mantua, and Parma. in the deep Padana Plain, between the rivers Oglio and the Po. These are frontier places, where there seems to be little on surface and wealth is under the crust. Places a little distant from everything, but if you have, you can fly high with fantasy, maybe dreaming of running away. In the seventies, my parents had a bar next to a cinema where I secretly entered almost every night. That's where I grew up. And then there was football on Sunday, black and white television, adventure books, and tons of comics, in a mix ranging from Sergio Leone to Salgari, from Tex Willer to Beppe Viola, Bruce Lee and the Italian period of political turmoil, from the 1970s to early 1980s. I have a winter memory of those years, the landscape was foggy and melancholy, with the farmhouses still inhabited, the red of the bricks and the pale sun that peeked through the poplars. To understand what I mean I don't think there's anything better than looking at Ghirri's photos taken in the Padania valley. It was just that thing there, that light.

Luigi Ghirri Paesaggi d'aria Solara, 1986 51x57 cm Fondo Ghirri

What about your interest in the cinema?

AZ: As I told you, I started attending the cinema as a child. In the seventies, the so-called genre films excelled. Especially among us, boys, these films opened the imagination to fantastic worlds. The first authored films that I remember are all related to the plain and the rural civilization. Two were shot where I grew up just in those years: Novecento e Tragedia di un Uomo Ridicolo, both by Bernardo Bertolucci, while a third one is Lʼalbero degli Zoccoli by Ermanno Olmi. Growing up I widened my horizons a lot, with an eye to the Italian, French and Japanese cinema of the sixties. It is difficult to tell which directors I am most fond of, perhaps those related to travels, to dreams and to the frontier in its broadest meaning such as Sergio Leone, Wim Wenders, Federico Fellini, and Bernardo Bertolucci, among others. In the last fifteen years, on the other hand, I have almost exclusively devoted myself to the Far East cinema.

A scene from 'Novecento' film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, 1976

© Alessandro Zanoni from the series 'Novecento'

A scene from 'L'Albero degli zoccoli', film directed by Ermanno Olmi, 1978

Your series 'The Post-war Dream' refers to a very special season of Italian cinema, tell us about its importance with respect to the researched you have developed in China?

AZ: The extraordinary transformation that the West has experienced in the post-war years is well documented by the cinematographies of various countries and among these Italy is perhaps the most prominent. The years of reconstruction coincided first with Neorealism and later, in the sixties, with the best season that our cinema remembers and that has traveled in parallel to the "boom" years. In the works of Pasolini, Rosi, Antonioni, Fellini, Petri (just to name a few) it is possible to observe the transition of our cities towards the so-called modernity, where the rural areas that surrounded the historic centers gradually also became part of the cities. Cities that grew more and more, and gave rise to the suburbs. And these are the (non) places that often act as a stage set for the stories of the protagonists of those films. Despite having lived them only in part, these visual contrasts are particularly familiar to me and I also found them in most of today's Chinese cities, also involved in sudden transformations.

A scene from the film 'Le mani sulla città', directed by Francesco Rosi, 1963

A scene from the film 'Le mani sulla città', directed by Francesco Rosi, 1963

© Alessandro Zanoni from the series 'The Post-war Dream' 

Your trip into Chinese Mongolia stems from an artistic residence that later proved to be an opportunity to get to know an emblematic region. Tell us briefly about this experience?

AZ: Yes, the work 'The Post-War Dream' starts with an artist's residence in the city of Ordos, Inner Mongolia, a vast Chinese territory bordering the state of Mongolia. The desire to go there originated from the interest in documenting a city that is known to be a ghost town. In reality, only some districts have this connotation and the phenomenon is also common to two other cities in the region, Baotou and the capital Hohhot, which I decided to include in my work. Moreover, the phenomenon of ghost districts is common to many Chinese cities, but here, perhaps, the effect is even more alienating due to the lower population density and the prairie that surrounds these cities, making them de facto cathedrals in the desert. From the early days of fieldwork I had the feeling of experiencing something very similar to the Italian post-war period and the years of reconstruction: rapidly changing rural landscapes, huge urban agglomerations under construction or waiting to be inhabited, people who passively witness an epochal change of their territory, a progressive cancellation of the past history and its memory. These are all familiar aspects of that film experience of which I mentioned earlier. Being part of a residency then had the advantage of getting in touch with local people who gave me a minimum of support, sometimes helping me in the search for certain landscapes and also introducing me to their culture.

© Alessandro Zanoni from the series 'The Post-war Dream'

© Alessandro Zanoni from the series 'The Post-war Dream'

© Alessandro Zanoni from the series 'The Post-war Dream'

Beyond 'The Post-war Dream' you have carried out other surveys and explorations in China where you have observed and documented the disappearance of a traditional residential system swallowed up by very different constructive urban and housing models.

AZ: The most substantial work in this sense was the documentation of some districts of Shenzhen and Shanghai that local authorities have decided to raze to make room for new areas with ambitious redevelopment projects. Areas whose real estate value has soared in recent years. Tens of thousands of people are forced, more or less voluntarily and after lengthy economic negotiations with the local government or construction companies, to leave that place that has seen them born and grow. They are the so-called "urban villages". Low-quality urban settlements with high population density. Buildings, which reach eight / ten floors, stuck together, and where space is so compressed that any idea of ​​privacy is canceled. Here in addition to homes, shops, businesses, and services have sprung up. Urban villages have been the answer to the need for housing of the many migrant workers, low-cost labor without a residence permit. It cannot be said that urban villages are a perfect model, indeed they have often been labeled as problem areas by institutions and the media. 

Alessandro Zanoni from the series 'Wuhan Boulevard'

Alessandro Zanoni from the series 'Wuhan Boulevard'

Alessandro Zanoni from the series 'Wuhan Boulevard'

Despite this, they represent a social model of self-organized communities where traditional cultures and norms are mixed and where the characteristics of the rural village based on cooperation, exchange and mutual aid are still alive. They are cities within the city, which have played a crucial role in the development of the Chinese metropolises and which are now about to be definitively canceled.

'The Post-war Dream' has also become a book published by Urbanautica. How much does this book interpret and translate your narrative and documentary intentions?

AZ: The editing phase was very important, it shaped the project, completed it and made it more accessible. Therefore I can say that it fully satisfies me. An excellent synthesis between what I had in mind and what was fieldwork. The number of shots produced and the abundance of archival film material could have justified greater foliation but there would have been the risk of being redundant. The choice of film references is rather discreet and suggests the idea, the concept, in a limpid manner by facilitating reading. I'd like to try to get a version with a different format, smaller but with a greater number of shots, also rethinking the dimensional relationship. I think the outtakes can still offer a lot in this sense. Let's see ...

Still images book 'The Post-war Dream', published by Urbanautica Institute, 2018

China from its entry into the global economy has become a field of "battle" for photographers curious to document its rapid and bulimic transformations. In some ways, an imaginary (at times redundant) was built on these works. In 'The Post-war Dream' instead, we find a will to relate the tumultuous Chinese present with the past of your country that has previously experienced an equally significant building boom. What are the noteworthy differences and similarities in this historical relationship?

AZ: Since the vertiginous development of its cities began in China, an enormous quantity of photographic material has been produced, inevitably ending up repeating itself. However, I must stress that the promiscuity of the first, second and third world still makes China an extraordinary source of inspiration. In The-Post War Dream I tried to give a different reading, putting together the documentary photography on a specific geographical area and material from the past, through a game of references and questions. Italy in the boom years and China in the last two decades share many aspects such as reconstruction, a future-oriented perspective, metropolitan expansion, the illusion of endless growth, development that is confused with progress. The 'dream' that suggests the title speaks of all this and landscapes so different end up resembling themselves in a surprising way.

Any book to suggest in relation to the issues addressed by 'The Post-war Dream' and maybe mention their importance?

AZ: I mention the first ones that come to mind, without thinking about it that much. The first is called Cosa Devo Guardare. Riflessioni critiche e fotografiche sui paesaggi di Michelangelo Antonioni, a volume edited by Maurizio G. De Bonis with the photographs by Orti Youdovich, which contains many interesting, critical and photographic reflections that interpret the landscape in the cinema of Michelangelo Antonioni, extending the field to the themes of representation of the world, of the naturalistic space and of the urban dimension.

The second is La Vita Agra, the famous novel by Luciano Bianciardi, a lucid and merciless look at the human and social consequences of the Italian economic boom, written in an extremely direct way while the phenomenon was happening.

The third title is Buonanotte Signor Mao by Gabriele Battaglia where, in a journey along the frontiers of Asia, many small stories are told which together paint a complex fresco of the continent that is already the absolute protagonist of this century. Among these pages, there are many points for reflection on migration, urban transformations, the exploitation of resources and the impact that all this has on people and the environment.

What are you up with? You've also been to Japan where you made a special night series ... 

AZ: During 2018, thanks to some commissioned works, I shot a lot in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. At the same time, especially in Japan, I dedicated myself to the urban landscape of peripheral areas, often portrayed at night. They are dormant suburbs, where everything seems to be perfect, neat and motionless. I played with neon lights as much as with the dawn that always comes too soon. I would call it a work in progress because, in reality, I am still studying. I hope to go back soon and complete the work.

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LINKS
Alessandro Zanoni  
Book 'The Post-war Dream
Urbanautica Italy