Castel Volturno is a city of 25,000 inhabitants 40km from Naples, Italy.

It is a unique town: it has the highest percentage of Africans in Europe. According to official statistics, 10% of the inhabitants come from Africa. According to the Caritas Centre, which looks after foreigners in need, there are between 10,000 and 15,000 Africans living in the city.

The population is comprised mostly of sub-Saharians, young, male, poor and illegal who live in the dilapidated suburbs of the city. They wake up at 4,30 am to get the first bus from Castel Volturno to the roundabouts of Naples in the hope of finding a job for 25 euros.

For the Italian Government "they are clandestine to be repatriated," whereas best-selling author Roberto Saviano defines them "an asset for Italy." In 2008 the South African singer Miriam Makeba died in Castel Volturno after her last concert. "She died in Africa," commented her relatives.

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Published on L'Espresso, Mana

Awarded by Les Visas de l'ANI - Prix ANI-PIXPALACE

Exhibited at Galerie du Bar Floreal 

The Irish Travellers are one of the strongest Catholic communities in the world.

Irish Travellers were a nomadic family-based group trading horses and tools with farmers in rural areas of Ireland. Since the country became more and more mechanized, they lost their economic role and travelling became less convenient.

Hence they became more settled and their lifestyle began to adapt to the new condition.

Among Travelling people religion has always played a vital role and nowadays their adherence to Catholic morals is still one of the most stringent worldwide. The way Travellers experience faith is far from being intimate and discreet, as the Christian moderation does not hinder their vitality and exuberance.

This photo-reportage is a result of a whole summer spent in Ireland moving from campsites to churches, to holy wells, to shrines.

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Published on Irish Times (Ireland), Internazionale (Italy), Gente (Italy), British Journal of Photography (UK)

Exhibited at Format Festival (Derby - UK)

A project by Francesco Alesi & Jesper Klemedsson.

At 4,000 meters of altitude, in the Bolivian Andes, life is a constant struggle.

Here, descendants of the Incas still live from the fertile soil of the mountains. But it takes more than just ancient skills for to have a good harvest: according to the people of the Andes, once a year Mother Earth (Pachamama) demands the sacrifice of human blood to be fertilized.

During thousands of years indigenous people have venerated Pachamama. Therefore, every year, in the beginning of May, the quechuas gather in the Potosi region of southern Bolivia for sacred fist fights during the Tinku ceremony.

Every drop of blood is seen as a sacrifice for the coming harvest. Every dead man is guarantee. Even to this day none is legally responsible if a death happens during the fights. The death is seen as a natural event.

According to some anthropologists Tinku, traditionally, was just a peaceful gathering between various local communities. It was after the Spanish colonization that Tinku was transformed into some sort of Roman circus where the indigenous population was forced to fight as entertainment for the Spanish.

The Tinku project is a collaborative work with my friend and collegue Jesper Klemedsson. Why did we shoot with mobile phones? Actually, me and Jesper were in Bolivia filming a documentary about Tinku published on Aljazeera.

Among cameras, tripods, microphones, headphones and stuff, if we had a free finger, we pushed the red dot on the smartphone, just to have a memoir of what we were doing. Watching at that photos before falling asleep in the night, we relized that with phones we were able to have a closer perspective of the story. So, we decided to take it seriously and that's how this project came out.

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Published on Internazionale (Italy)