Giovanni Coco
Plantarium
The Garbatella and its flora are a well-kept Roman secret. It is an exotic and unique neighbourhood – founded in February 1920, so next to its centenary – known for its architecture based on lots, a particular kind of public housing with buildings designed according to “Barocchetto romano” style and to English Garden City Movement model.
The neighbourhood is an un-imitated little urban island, with the highest ratio, in Italy of those years, between built-up surface and “private” green spaces, that are, for generations, social sites and still live on only thanks to the care of its residents.
Hence the choice to photograph plants, because they represent a kind of aesthetic, behavioral, architectural and vegetational exoticism of the entire physical place.
With this series I want to offer a glimpse of this treasure unveiling the neighbourhood’s flora and vegetations – its enthralling green spaces. Trying to preserve its mystery while giving movement to still life.
Short Bio
Born in Sulmona, Italy, 1973.
I started to take pictures because my father was an amateur photographer. His photos surrounded me since I was a kid – they were everywhere, on the tables, in the closets, in the bookcases. He used to bring me in his dark room and he encouraged me to use it and his cameras. It was inevitable to approach photography so I started taking pictures very soon. It was like a game, for years, but in 2004, when I started to confront myself with a story which involves me in an emotional way, the Monia’s project, I realized that the camera was a powerful medium to observe and get in touch with the world and a tool to communicate my own view of the world around me in the most immediate way.
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