Suspended city, photography exhibition by Michele Nastasi

From 18 February to 5 March, EXPOWALL, photography gallery in Milan will be hosting the exhibition by Michele Nastasi “Suspended City. L’Aquila after the earthquake”. Nastasi's photos aren't just portraits of the existing conditions, he goes beyond that and raises questions about the meaning of life in cities and in a community. 



EXPOWALL, the new photography gallery opened by Pamela Campaner and Alberto Meomartini in Milan (via Curtatone 4) will be hosting the work of Michele Nastasi “Suspended City. L’Aquila after the earthquake” from 18 February to 5 March. The exhibition has already been shown at the MIT in Boston and first been published on Lotus International, and it's more than just a record of what remains of the central Italian city after the earthquake on April 6, 2009 - it is a record of how the city is still engulfed by emergency, where it remains a “Red Zone”, uninhabited and closed to public access.





Nastasi's photos - taken between 2010 and 2012 - show L'Aquila as a wounded city, with splints, casts and stays shoring it up. But although these surgical interventions were successful, they haven't healed the city, they are like a straitjacket around the historical centre, holding it suspended in time and stopping people from returning to their homes and their businesses and getting on with life.





The exhibition's three sections - The inhabited city, Prostheses and Ruins - record a situation that forced people to abandon the old town, the true heart of the city and its social and cultural dynamics. Emergency housing and new suburban residences cannot replace a living fabric that is generated by time and history.



With Michele Nastasi's “Suspended City. L’Aquila after the earthquake” the photography gallery EXPOWALL continues to explore contemporary cityscapes. This investigation was engendered by the experience of Expowall photoblog, a place on the web showcasing in real time the photographs posted by Instagram users visiting Expo 2015. This goal of this real space was to enhance the work of photographers, the true messengers of the 3rd millennium, where images are increasingly replacing words.

Christiane Bürklein

Exhibition: Michele Nastasi “Suspended City. L’Aquila after the earthquake”
Inauguration: Thursday 18 February at 6 pm, via Curtatone 4 Milan 
Gallery Talk 18 February at 6.30 pm - with the photographer present 
opening hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10 am - 6 pm 
www.expowallgallery.com
The exhibition catalogue: Michele Nastasi Suspended City: L’Aquila after the earthquake, by Maddalena d’Alfonso, Actar, New York 2015.