When we say, we read, we hear the word Malagrotta, our thoughts immediately turn to the largest waste dump in Italy and Europe: 240 hectares into which about 5,000 tons of waste were discharged per day. Until 1 October 2013, when, after a series of extensions, this huge landfill, now exhausted, was closed. On January 9 of the following year, a department of the NOE (the Carabinieri's Ecological Operating Unit) arrested 7 people for criminal actions aimed at trafficking waste. Despite this dramatic past, Gian Marco Sanna's book, published by Urbanautica Institute in 2017, is not a collection of devastating or gruesome images. This is definitely not the case. The Roman photographer who grew up near the landfill tries to represent that world as if to show a hidden, dark dimension. The book is a journey into the night of the landfill, of blurred outlines, and subjects that hurl themselves forcefully into the darkness.

The situation has not improved since its closure. Abandoned waste of all kinds is still visible in the areas surrounding the landfill. Malagrotta is black flowing water, worn tires, rubble, abandoned cars, dead palm trees, ash. A wounded ground. At night the air is filled with a thick cloud of smoke and stinks. It is "the city of snow" as Sanna put it. A place where at night fumes and stinks rise from "wounded ground". And by day it becomes the hellish realm of flocks of seagulls. I felt indignation and anger at the vision of this reality. We are talking about situations to which I am particularly sensitive for having lived through events like this. Not only because I am Neapolitan (with all the problems of non-waste disposal that have made the city famous), but also because I was president of the Vesuvius National Park when, in May 2008, a senseless government measure made it possible to transform a quarry of stone material in the landfill of waste from Naples: in a protected natural area established on the basis of a law approved in 1991. 

© Still images of the book 'Malagrotta', Gian Marco Sanna (Urbanautica Institute, 2017)

Unfortunately, the bitter considerations on the close relationship between waste production and disposal, and consequent environmental pollution do not end here. This is not just a "southern issue" for Italy. The virtuous North is seriously starting to pay the bills for the environmental and health impact resulting from criminal management of wastes, illegal trafficking, and industrial pollution. This book therefore also speaks to us of a mentality, of a wrong and harmful attitude, and of its tangible consequences. Unauthorized landfills, abandoned and contaminated industrial sites, arson are just some examples of the "barbaric" or criminal way of closing the life cycle of consumption. 

The signs of this unfortunate behavior are clearly visible on the flap of the book cover, which depicts satellite images of the Malagrotta site. Signs that look like wounds that are difficult to heal. Yet the book suggests that nothing is irremediable and that we need to look at the problems instead of turning away.

© Installation views at Lombardi Arte, Siena, 2018

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LINKS
Gian Marco Sanna
Interview with Gian Marco Sanna 
Book 'Malagrotta', published by Urbanautica Institute 2020