One Euro Italy

One Euro Italy is my documentary project on the villages and small towns scattered in different regions of the country.

It takes you on a 1600 km Mille Miglia kind of journey, but through communities which famous Italian vintage car rally tends to avoid in their calendar.

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In face of steady population decline over the past decades, some of these villages joined the program - "Case a un euro" (House for one euro) in an attempt to revitalize their towns and bring in new life. This program has made too many headlines on newspapers and websites, but often these articles only scratch the surface making it look like a bargain purchase for our new materialist society or a cheap ticket to Italian "dolce vita". Most of the time they do very little justice for these uniquely beautiful places, their heritage and everyday life of their inhabitants.
What kind of life, if it still exists, awaits you there? What do those villages have to offer apart from affordable living?

Is it an ideal romantic escape from city stress or a life full of boredom and struggle for survival, as some skeptics suggest?
In my visual story I attempt to present you with photographs which should help you answer these and many other questions.

They are most of the time controversial as the story itself, but I'm sure they won't leave you indifferent.

Travelling to depopulated towns in Italian regions of Piemonte, Liguria, Toscana, Marche, Abruzzo and Sicilia, it was my quest to faithfully depict the current state of life there and those consequences of migration to the cities and other countries which started in early 1950's. My interaction with people still living in these tiny localities added another layer to this photographic story, which also talks about the spirit and captivating energy of those few villagers, rather than portraying a dark destiny of places becoming nearly abandoned.

The exhibition of selected photographs was held in Columbus Center in Toronto, Canada during 2018 CONTACT Photography Festival.