Jean-Marc Caimi e Valentina Piccinni, Rhome, 2020

Rome is the adoptive city of Jean-Marc Caimi and Valentina Piccinni, both of whom chose it as their home base from all their peregrinations related to the profession of photojournalist. After years of exploring other worlds, the two photographers had the urge to get under the skin of the city.
Their journey through Rome, which oscillates between a narrative of international events and an intimist tale, explores what lies beyond the dichotomy that divides the personal from the universal.
The city of Rome, through Caimi and Piccinni’s photographs, becomes the evoker of a profound force, hidden in reality but evident in the photographs that represent it, formed by microcosms that interweave encounters and situations. Places, instants of private lives, atmospheres: a scenery outside the stereotypes, far from the tourist imagery, approached without filters.
“Rhome” is therefore an expressionist, visceral, uncompromising and even disturbing vision of the city that Caimi and Piccinni call home.

“Working on the sequence and pairing the images for the book, we opted for an instinctive and emotional approach, instead of favouring a logical and consequential narrative. This way of working, opening up endless connections between the images, gave us a renewed vision of the city and a hint of truth about our own lives”.

With Rhome, Caimi and Piccinni present the second chapter of their long-term project on three ‘cities in transition’ (Naples, Rome, Istanbul): vulnerable metropolises, in the balance, always exposed to mutation.