As Italy’s third largest city, Naples is also one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban areas in the world. Famed as a significant cultural centre during the Roman Empire, the city is home to a wealth of invaluable historical buildings, monuments and works of art. However, as the Camorra mafia syndicate retain their stronghold in the modern-day metropolis, Naples consistently tops the European Crime Index rankings and is most often associated with its social issues rather than its rich cultural heritage.
With his ongoing photo series, See Naples and Die, young British portrait and documentary photographer Sam Gregg explores the portrayal of life in the Italian city, beyond the statistics. Fascinated by the unique amalgamation of cultures that blend together in the modern city, Gregg sees Napoli — where he lived in 2016 — as something of a defiant symbol of solidarity in contemporary Italy. “At a time when nationality and immigration is centrefold to Italian current affairs, the story of Naples, both past and present, is one to be upheld as a symbol of cultural consolidation,” the artist tells SLEEK.
Gregg’s project is an attempt to highlight the unique and vibrant characteristics of Neapolitan culture and subvert the heavily politicised narrative that has come to define the city with a series of authentic and intimate portrayals of its residents. The settings for the works include the city’s most infamous quarters, which are indicative of “a densely packed pressure cooker with many forced to escape the tensions of reality through non-conformist measures.”
Focussing on everyday scenes and themes of resilience, the series challenges the city’s tainted depiction in mainstream media, in favour of a socially-driven documentation of its communities. “The residents from these zones firmly believe that they’re cut from a different cloth,” says Gregg. “Even in the face of prejudice, they embrace their differences wholeheartedly, and ironically although the Neapolitans strive for singularity, they are in fact comprised of diversity.”
An exhibition of See Naples and Die is in the pipeline in London, but in the meantime, SLEEK publishes an exclusive selection from the series.
All images courtesy of Sam Gregg.