Altera Italia, by Alessia Rollo. Published by Miracoli Visivi

Altera Italia is a photographic and anthropological project that explores the ritual imagery of Southern Italy, reinterpreting its visual history and reworking the stereotypes inherited from the neorealism of the last century.

Altera Italia is the result of a five-year research project, launched in 2019 and developed as a multidisciplinary initiative that intertwines photography, archival materials, video, and animation.

This work reexamines the cultural identity of Southern Italy by critically re-evaluating the visual legacy produced in the 1950s and 1960s by anthropologists, filmmakers, and photographers associated with Ernesto De Martino’s expeditions, who helped solidify the image of the South as an archaic and superstitious place.

The research is divided into two main strands: the manipulation of archival materials from the neorealist period, reprocessed using analog and digital techniques, painting on negatives, collages, and perforations, to reintroduce into the images the magical-ritual horizon that was originally removed, and documentation of contemporary rituals still practiced in six regions of Southern Italy, photographed not with a taxonomic intent but as a perceptual and symbolic immersion, capable of making visible what belongs to the believer-participant and not to the outside observer.

The result is an evocative, sensory, and spiritual imagery that restores a sense of complexity to the festivals and communal practices that continue to this day to bring entire communities together and foster a shared sense of belonging.