Alfred Seiland. IMPERIVM ROMANVM. Photographs 2005-2020

Through a wide selection of images from Alfred Seiland's monumental work Imperium romanum, the book proposes a great ideal transcontinental journey, touching on emblematic archaeological sites such as Rome, Palmyra, Samaria or Epidaurus, in 40 countries. The Austrian artist travelled to the territories where the Roman empire stretched, from Syria to Scotland and beyond, capturing on film the different nuances of interaction between man and ruins. The artistic project illustrates, with photographs that are sometimes hyperrealist and pop, sometimes symbolist and minimalist, the inextricable and vital relationship between Roman antiquities and the places of modernity. The Roman ruins thus clearly emerge as the great common heritage of a European visual identity, a sort of lowest common denominator of modern art and contemporary architecture, the first form of globalisation of the gaze. Through the pages of the book, the reader is accompanied to discover the transformations of cities and landscapes: the photographer's eye exalts their sometimes conscious, sometimes casual reuse, and jokes on the surreal dialogue between ancient monumental glories and modern urban fabrics. It is not easy to translate into snapshots what the significance of antiquity - or rather of ancient ruins - may be for contemporary society.