There are places in Southern Italy that carry scars of incurable wounds on the walls and on the flesh of its inhabitants. In those wounds lay the historical memory, the real face of human beings. In those wounds grows solitude in its rawest form and love in its most sincere display: here is where it hides, escaping the superficiality and the homologation of consumerist society. My images are an intimate disclosure of invisible existences. An attempt to recover the meaning of life through relationships, the neighborhood and the families that inhabit it. This meaning is too often ignored by the politics that govern this area. Between 1950 and 1970, the city of Cosenza underwent its major demographic and building development, due to the population migrating from rural areas. However, at the same time the decline of the historical center also began. The urban expansion was not regulated and followed the unwritten rules of speculation, corruption and maximum gain. This caused a complete imbalance between the roles and functions of the center of town and the rest of the city. Matters related to economy, university education, general public services were moved to the newer, northern part of the city, together with the richer families and the political elite. Later, when the public housing neighborhoods of Via Popilia, Serra Spiga and San Vito were built, the remaining population left the historical center. This second depopulation together with the total neglect from local administrators aggravated the social disadvantages. The district of Santa Lucia in Cosenza’s historical center was once the core of city life. Also known as the “lucciole” (prostitutes) district, it is a different entity separated from the city; a parallel world where the decay of its buildings shares the everyday life of its people. Today, the few families and indigenous inhabitants that still live in the Santa Lucia district have chosen tenaciously not to abandon that place which is the guardian of their identity and their experiences, despite the constant risk of collapsing buildings. Apart from the locals, foreign families live in the neighborhood, among which some from the Roma ethnic group, who arrived there after the clearing of a Roma camp located on Crati river.