Oldscapes

Walking through the aging citizens of Milan

Mariano Viola
3 min readMar 9, 2020
Via Bisleri, Milano. August 6, 2019

I started to make street photography almost a year ago, I did it mostly during my early morning and late evening commuting. At that time I didn’t have a project in mind, it was a random journey without a particular target. Later on, I discovered that old people figures visually emerged in several photos, especially in those taken during the hottest months of the year when the younger Milanese population usually migrate towards the pre-alpine lakes and the beaches along the peninsula coasts.

I can’t say exactly why I unconsciously shot those pictures at first, then I realized that in my eyes, elderly people are bearers of fragility and solitude as well as persistence and perseverance. This ambivalence created a positive tension that brought me to portray them consciously and what follows is a partial documentation of this persistent and at the same time fragile layer of humanity.

Via Rubens, Milano. April 24, 2019.
Piazza Duca d’Aosta, Milano. Jun 1, 2019 — Parco Sempione, Milano. August 3, 2019.
Viale Rubens, Milano. July 25, 2019
Viale Osoppo, Milano. August 5, 2019.
Parco Sempione, Milano. June 6, 2019.
Viale Rembrandt, Milano. August 14, 2019
Via Antonello da Messina, Milano. February 11, 2020.
Via Meravigli, Milano. January 14, 2020
Piazza De Angeli, Milano. February 8, 2020.
Via Cannobio, Milano. April 15, 2019.

Photos were taken with a Nexus 5X and a Pixel 3a in Milan between April 2019 and February 2020.

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Mariano Viola

Team leader at Accurat. Technologist, designer, amateur photographer, avid walker.