When we think about the "death" of a city, natural disasters or war events immediately come to mind as the possible and only causes of such a phenomenon. In fact, history books are not short of recounting instances when entire villages were sacked and devastated by enemy peoples or destroyed by earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis. Similar episodes, on reflection, still occur today. That is why, in the collective imagination, we rarely associate the idea of "a dying city" with a silent, less scenic, but equally fatal event. As fatal can be a slow but progressive internal "hemorrhage" caused by the weakening of that bond that is the foundation of a city and shapes its identity, that between the people who inhabit it and the activities that animate it. Where one of these two forces loosens, the other inevitably follows.
"State in Place" is a project that aims to raise awareness of the depersonalization of Rome's historic center, caused by the exodus of residents and the related closure of historic stores due to the increasingly invasive phenomenon of "Airbnbfication."
