Göran Gnaudschun, ARE YOU HAPPY?, 2019

During his residency at the German Academy Villa Massimo in Rome, the photographer Göran Gnaudschun (b. 1971, lives and works in Potsdam, Germany) avoided the postcard-perfect Rome that attracts millions of tourists. For the series Are You Happy? the artist instead trained his lens on the Eternal City’s eastern periphery and its residents. They live in cramped conditions, in tenements surrounded by brownfields. Only a stone’s throw away, the ancient city wall separates neighborhoods preferred by a young and upwardly mobile crowd from the outlying districts.

Gnaudschun strolled through these so-called deprived areas, exploring their high-rise complexes and failed urban renewal projects. In portraits that capture the individuality of their subjects and atmospheric renditions of the austere architecture that is characteristic of Rome’s east, Gnaudschun offers a searching analysis of the urban fabric in which everyday life is set and the rhythms that organize its time. With essays by Emilia Giorgi, Göran Gnaudschun, Yvonne Dohna Schlobitten, and Marie-Amélie zu Salm-Salm.