Powerful Roots

The showcase, which marks the first presentation of the Italian photographer’s work in London, features images captured over the past two years in Boncellino – a tiny hamlet in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, near Neri’s hometown of Faenza. The area is characterised by abundant landscapes that have been cultivated with fruits, vegetables, vines and cereals since Roman times. Its villages, however, are suffering from environmental degradation and a declining rural population. 

Boncellino is the most recent chapter in Neri’s long-term study of North Italy’s rural farming communities. The catalyst for the project was an encounter with a local farmer, Livio Papi, in 2009. It was a meeting that allowed Neri to unlock his deep connection with his own roots. By portraying – and, in the process of this, interacting with – the people of his native region, he saw a way “to understand where I am from”. 

As is often the case with projects that are close to their author’s heart, Boncellino is also an ever-evolving self-portrait. Time and again, Neri returns to capture people and the structures they have built, in a bid “to retrace my steps and see how things and people have changed. I too have changed in turn.” As the series progresses, the photographer and his protagonists age together, and the project itself becomes a record of the passage of time.