Salvatore Santoro, Saluti da PINETAMARE, 2012

“July 1989. It had been the first time since I heard a Kalashnikov shooting. And it was against people. That night, we would have never imagined we had to run away, looking back embracing some beers.”

The photos of this book were taken during the years 2009 – 2011 in the places along the 54 km of the National Road n.7 Quarter “Domitiana” in the cities of Licola, Lago Patria, Ischitella, Villaggio Coppola-Pinetamare Castel Volturno, Pescopagano, Mondragone, and crossing the Mediterranean coast of the  provinces of Naples and Caserta, in Italy. These are the places of the author’s childhood summer holidays but also the headquarters of the Nigerian mafia (born in Castel Voturno and not in Nigeria), the commercial area of Neapolitan Camorra and Mafia Casalese, area of illegal waste. This book is not a journalistic document about a single event or one theme, but it’s a personal project about Salvatore Santoro’s home, the place of his childhood. It’s about what happened to these places. He tried to explore the changes into the places of his childhood memories by making them collide with reality. The reality is that the direction taken by mankind, is far from reaching a better future which would leave our children better off their parents.