Fabio Sgroi, Archivio volume uno, 2022

Palermo, 1984. The second Mafia war has ended with the confirmation of the Corleonesi, in July Giovanni Falcone flies to Brazil to talk to Buscetta, paving the way for the maxi-trial and the season remembered as the Palermo Spring; Fabio Sgroi is nineteen years old and begins photographing friends and the city’s punk scene. The following year, thanks to the camera, he found a job at the newspaper L’Ora and, in addition to portraits of friends, he added news reporting to his portfolio: crime and lifestyle reporting. Private moments alternate and mingle with the flow of life and death that is the scene of the streets of Palermo. There is a nervous tension running through Sgroi’s photographs, the ferment for something that must and is about to happen, a crack that opens, perhaps collapsing the pavement, perhaps ripping open a sky that has become too heavy.