I moved to Tokyo 11 years ago, the day of my birthday. Upon my arrival in Japan, I naively did not anticipate the difficulties I would encounter, especially in terms of social interaction.
The only ways I could get away from the loneliness I felt, were two: walking and taking pictures. These activities kept me sane and helped me fill my days.
Urban exploration, focused in the suburb of North-west Tokyo.
Soon enough, I began to recognise that Tokyo urban fabric is shaped by the railway network. Perhaps in a unique pattern of development, the main activities are concentrated within a 500mt radius of the stations and then degrade into areas composed almost exclusively of single-family residential houses. My explorations focused on the latter.
This is a project born in retrospect. Looking at the photo archive, I began to notice that many places, structures, houses that I had photographed were no longer there.
These places, structures, houses fascinating in their decadence or their geometric shapes, replaced by a soulless car park, a new ready-made house, a new multi-apartment building, a new shopping centre.
Tokyo expresses a total absence of conservationism, nothing is safe, everything can be demolished and rebuilt. It is a pragmatic and dynamic society, where the word 'old' takes on a completely different meaning from mine. Building speculation is a driving power.
In Florence, where I was born and raised, everything has stood still for hundreds of years. Conservation and restoration are part of Italian culture.
A very strong contrast between this two cities, or I should say two very different cultures Difficult for me to understand.
A fast-food architecture.
An archive of places that are no longer there and have disappeared in the last 10 years.
The archive consists of various stages of disappearance, the original constructions, the stages of demolition, new spaces and new constructions.
Tokyo as a living organism.
( These photographs are a small portion of a larger body of work that will ultimately be published in a book )