What if Rome's decline were the result of a very specific Project?

Telling the story of the slow, steady decline of the city of Rome would be an all-too-obvious subject for a photographic project.

Photography, since its very beginning, has had among its callings that of being a tool to denounce the problems and injustices of the present, by virtue of its objectivity in portraying reality as it is. A photograph can be the proof of a fact, while a painting, by its very nature, is something contrived, the product of the author’s mental elaboration.

Because of this old, mistaken and ancient conception, photography is still today, by some, considered a minor art, limited by being an instantaneous and objective portrait — unlike painting, which is the fruit of the artist’s creativity and expression, putting their own mental images onto the canvas.

Fortunately, a century and a half of practising the photographic art has shown this idea to be entirely wrong, and the “new medium” of expression has allowed the great photographers of the 20th century to produce unforgettable masterpieces.

Even so, the photograph of denunciation and the genre report remain among the favourite subjects of the many practitioners of photographic art. This fact, combined with another classic prejudice about Art — according to which the artist is more of an artist if they express suffering — is the main reason festivals and exhibitions devoted to photography teem with works in which social denunciation and the portrayal of human suffering are the founding message.

Carola Gatta does not belong to this kind of artist.

Carola Gatta belongs to that kind of author who knows how to overturn the conventional schemes of the language of art and uses irony to deliver, powerfully, their message. A message that surprises, entertains, sometimes makes you laugh, but is no less effective and profound for it.

And that is exactly what happens in her wonderful first photo book: Once Were Warriors. A small masterpiece curated by the brilliant creatives of Yogurt Creative Agency, a brilliant book that immediately fascinated us and that we decided to produce.

The work was conceived during the period of greatest decline of our Capital, a period when vegetation was reclaiming streets and pavements, wild animals roamed undisturbed in residential areas, the access ramps to subway stops turned into rapids in flood and public transport was the daily setting of spectacular fires.

A surreal situation, so surreal that it made you think all of this was too absurd to be the result of mere neglect and carelessness on the part of administrations and citizens.

There had to be a reason behind this scenario. Only supernatural and malevolent forces could have created all this — unless…

And then, suddenly, an opening appears, a glimmer of possible rationality.

As happens in the best plots, the providential discovery arrives — a chance finding of materials that should have remained secret: photos, evidence, documents, that suddenly cast a light on everything. Far more than a glimmer, it is a true burst of light that finally makes everything clear, everything obvious.

How the Artist came to know about it we cannot say. We can make hypotheses, but they would only be conjectures.

Who the men and women with their important, learned bearing — probably scientists — portrayed in the photos might be, we cannot know, just as we cannot tell whether the photos are recent or belong to an academic world of another era.

What is certain is that the draft of a letter addressed to the “Powers That Be” explains the important thing.

It is all planned, all wanted, all the fruit of a very specific project with a very specific purpose!

“We must do something different, something never before done in the course of History. The time has come to turn Rome into a jungle.”

At this point you will be wondering why.

The answer is in the title of the book, the answer is because: “Once Were Warriors”.

We were once a Warrior Civilisation.

And what does this have to do with the decline of Rome?

It does, oh it does…

We told you, Carola Gatta’s book is brilliant. Truly brilliant.