The exhibition presents a new project by Nicola di Giorgio, winner of the 8th edition of the Prize in 2022. La deposizione del vuoto continues the research begun in 2020 with Calcestruzzo, the project that earned Di Giorgio the 2022 Prize, in which the photographer confronted the theme of the cementification of the Italian landscape. Guided by a scientific approach and informed by dialogue with the history of art, his research opens up a reflection on both personal and collective experience, constructing a visual discourse in which each image is bound to the next by a red thread.

Among the subjects: the Scampia public housing complex known as the Vele, photographed just before its demolition; a reinforced concrete pillar evoking childhood memories of stories about morti ammazzati concealed within the fraudulent new constructions of the time; and the 2002 accident that struck one of the world’s most imposing reinforced concrete structures, the Pirelli skyscraper. Di Giorgio reworks fragments of a collective memory in which concrete emerges as the emblem of an unstable balance between design and hope, strength and vulnerability, producing a reflection in which the fragility of the built landscape echoes the fragility of the human condition.

Established on the initiative of Studio Legale Graziadei with the aim of promoting the work of young photographers and supporting them over time, the Prize became part of Maxxi’s photography programme in 2019. The exhibition also features a selection of works by past winners: Andrea Botto, Alessandro Calabrese, The Cool Couple, Rachele Maistrello, Francesco Neri, Luca Nostri, Pietro Paolini, Luca Spano, and Alba Zari.