Scanno is one of the most recognisable places in the history of Italian photography. Its reputation was established, beginning in the 1950s, through the images of Henri Cartier-Bresson and, in the following decade, those of Mario Giacomelli. Since then, generations of photographers have continued to visit this small village in Abruzzo, documenting its architecture, streets, inhabitants and traditions, predominantly through the language of black-and-white photography.
Scanno That I Have Never Seen originates from a particular circumstance. Giordano Macellari has never been to Scanno. His knowledge of this place comes from photographs taken by other photographers, from the visual memory that has gradually formed around the village, and from his own imagination. He has chosen this distance as the starting point for a project that does not seek to document a place, but rather to reinterpret its identity through an independent artistic vision.
Although deeply connected to black-and-white photography, he has chosen to engage with this tradition through a different expressive approach, placing colour at the centre of his research. A vivid, unrestricted colour palette, at times far removed from natural hues, drawing inspiration from the photographic work of Franco Fontana and from Giordano Macellari’s own experience as a painter.
The architecture and elements of the landscape are transformed by vivid fields of colour, with shades of yellow, red, magenta and blue, while human figures largely retain colours closer to their natural appearance. The result is a dialogue between reality and interpretation, between the recognisability of the place and its visual transformation.
The images, created entirely in digital form using artificial intelligence tools, are not the representation of a lived experience, but rather the construction of an imagined world. They do not seek to reproduce Scanno faithfully, nor to compete with the photographs that have shaped its history. Instead, they draw upon its visual memory to create a personal interpretation, in which colour becomes an expressive tool and photography moves closer to painting.
The title encapsulates the essence of the project. Scanno That I Have Never Seen is a real place, but also an imagined one, known through the eyes of others and ultimately recreated through Macellari’s artistic language.
Thirty works make up this series: thirty interpretations of a place the artist has never visited, but which he has chosen to explore through his imagination and artistic language.
Text by Luna