Somewhere - March 2020 / Rome - Old town

Somewhere – Reportage fotografico di Chiara Moncada

The decree of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers of March 9, 2020, regarding measures to contain the Coronavirus (Covid 19), imposed strict restrictions on the entire population, such as the ban on leaving home except for reasons of necessity and the closure of all the commercial activities not strictly necessary.

The city has turned into a ghost town. Streets, squares and crossroads have become new places, where the silence speaks and the only sounds are the squeaking birds and the beating of a few passers-by’s shoes on the ground.
Or the playful scream of some child in the distance.
In this new guise, Rome forgets about the chaos, the smog, the continuous clamour. It forgets about the 15 million tourists who invade it every year, snatching from it the solemnity that only silence can restore.

Those streets of Rome, which have always been represented as the very idea of the Eternal City, pulsating and noisy, popular and chic at the same time, are now immersed in a silence so unusual and bizarre.

Something unknown and rare that has the power to catch us unprepared.

La traduzione direttamente dalla voce dell’autrice