Diego Mayon, Luca Martinelli, and Raffaele Vertaldi. Meadows of Asphalt
8.4.2021, 9:00 PM
Lab27 is pleased to announce the eighth appointment of INCONTRI DI FOTOGRAFIA, which will take place on April 8 at 9:00 PM, streamed live on the Lab27 YouTube channel.
Joining us will be photographer Diego Mayon, journalist Luca Martinelli, and photo editor Raffaele Vertaldi, to present the photographic research and editorial project “Grey Grass”, conducted between 2011 and 2015, which investigates the agricultural landscape of the eastern Milan area affected by the infrastructure transformations driven by Expo Milano.
Around a thousand hectares of fertile farmland were cleared to make way for two new highways, impacting numerous local crops and threatening the survival of Lombard agriculture. We will discuss this not only with Diego Mayon, whose personal roots are deeply connected to these lands, but also with Luca Martinelli, former contributor to Altraeconomia, La Repubblica, and Il Manifesto, and Raffaele Vertaldi, professor at the Fondazione Modena Arti Visive and photo editor for publications including Domus and Il Sole 24 Ore. Together, they created "Grey Grass", a newspaper designed for public display and to present the research in an accessible way.
"Google Maps gives us the layout of the BREBEMI highway, the A35. It’s useful to view it from above, using Earth mode, the satellite view: you see a strip cutting through the green of the fields. And it’s easy to imagine, as already mentioned, that there were agricultural lands “down there.” Also, consider that the fields north and south of the highway belong to the same farms, now divided in two. Ten months after the inauguration of the BREBEMI, it is already useful to look at the numbers: it has become evident what some – above all Legambiente Lombardia – had been warning for years, namely the complete uselessness of the project. The company managing it has never released traffic data, but an article published by La Repubblica in March 2015 noted that “in the first seven months of operation, there were 2.3 million crossings in total. A simple division shows an average of 11,000 vehicles per day.”
These numbers highlight the fragility of the rhetoric that, for 15 years, invoked the dream of a “must-have” new highway connecting Brescia to Milan. Yet, this infrastructure cost over €1.6 billion (rising to €2.4 billion including financial charges) and was financed partly by public institutions such as Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (80% controlled by the Ministry of Economy and Finance) and the European Investment Bank (EIB), owned by the 28 EU member states, as well as the Lombardy Region. The EIB is the EU’s long-term financing institution, which also provided funds for the company building the Tangenziale Est Esterna di Milano (TEEM). Without its intervention, it is unlikely that these two projects – BREBEMI (the “direct route” between Brescia and Milan) and TEEM – would have been realized, and some of Lombardy’s agricultural land could have been spared from asphalt and concrete.
However, the blame does not lie with Europe; these were not choices imposed “from Brussels.” In other European countries, the EIB also finances development projects for agricultural sectors. In Italy, on the other hand, the focus is still on “large-scale public works.”
Diego Mayon, Luca Martinelli, and Raffaele Vertaldi. Meadows of Asphalt
8.4.2021, 9:00 PM
Lab27 is pleased to announce the eighth appointment of INCONTRI DI FOTOGRAFIA, which will take place on April 8 at 9:00 PM, streamed live on the Lab27 YouTube channel.
Joining us will be photographer Diego Mayon, journalist Luca Martinelli, and photo editor Raffaele Vertaldi, to present the photographic research and editorial project “Grey Grass”, conducted between 2011 and 2015, which investigates the agricultural landscape of the eastern Milan area affected by the infrastructure transformations driven by Expo Milano.
Around a thousand hectares of fertile farmland were cleared to make way for two new highways, impacting numerous local crops and threatening the survival of Lombard agriculture. We will discuss this not only with Diego Mayon, whose personal roots are deeply connected to these lands, but also with Luca Martinelli, former contributor to Altraeconomia, La Repubblica, and Il Manifesto, and Raffaele Vertaldi, professor at the Fondazione Modena Arti Visive and photo editor for publications including Domus and Il Sole 24 Ore. Together, they created "Grey Grass", a newspaper designed for public display and to present the research in an accessible way.
"Google Maps gives us the layout of the BREBEMI highway, the A35. It’s useful to view it from above, using Earth mode, the satellite view: you see a strip cutting through the green of the fields. And it’s easy to imagine, as already mentioned, that there were agricultural lands “down there.” Also, consider that the fields north and south of the highway belong to the same farms, now divided in two. Ten months after the inauguration of the BREBEMI, it is already useful to look at the numbers: it has become evident what some – above all Legambiente Lombardia – had been warning for years, namely the complete uselessness of the project. The company managing it has never released traffic data, but an article published by La Repubblica in March 2015 noted that “in the first seven months of operation, there were 2.3 million crossings in total. A simple division shows an average of 11,000 vehicles per day.”
These numbers highlight the fragility of the rhetoric that, for 15 years, invoked the dream of a “must-have” new highway connecting Brescia to Milan. Yet, this infrastructure cost over €1.6 billion (rising to €2.4 billion including financial charges) and was financed partly by public institutions such as Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (80% controlled by the Ministry of Economy and Finance) and the European Investment Bank (EIB), owned by the 28 EU member states, as well as the Lombardy Region. The EIB is the EU’s long-term financing institution, which also provided funds for the company building the Tangenziale Est Esterna di Milano (TEEM). Without its intervention, it is unlikely that these two projects – BREBEMI (the “direct route” between Brescia and Milan) and TEEM – would have been realized, and some of Lombardy’s agricultural land could have been spared from asphalt and concrete.
However, the blame does not lie with Europe; these were not choices imposed “from Brussels.” In other European countries, the EIB also finances development projects for agricultural sectors. In Italy, on the other hand, the focus is still on “large-scale public works.”
