From Costei to São Paulo by Paola Di Bello Layers of Reality begins as a periodical publication and empirical survey of my experiences over the last few years. It is an open space, a gathering place, starting with certain paths of research already taken, adding others over time. The layers range from the “street inspections” of discarded objects, to stories gathered in encounters with the homeless, finding signs of their life and ours in urban traces. From the voyage in Rumania to photograph the relatives of people who have immigrated to Italy, to the trip through some of the largest favelas of São Paulo. [follow at page 3] Extra Territoria by Marco Scotini I don’t know who took the old black and white photo there before my eyes. The concerned approach to reality could be the documentary style of Evans, of Lewis Hine, but also that of an anonymous reporter coming to grips with poverty, excluded humanity, forgotten citizens. At the center of the image an unimagined zone of poverty attracts the eye due to the typology of the settlement: a sort of archetype of homelessness that by now, for us, at the beginning of the new millennium, appears as a veritable settlement principle, utterly familiar in the space of the global city. A cluster of shanties and hovels made with recycled materials, a small enclave by the slope of a high grassy railroad embankment, on the outskirts of any big city.
