Gezicht op de Strada Mercurio te Pompeï, Italië 1870 - 1890

Curator: Looking at this image by Giorgio Sommer, taken between 1870 and 1890, I am immediately struck by the desolation. There is an undeniable sadness that permeates this photograph of Pompeii’s Strada Mercurio. Editor: Indeed, a striking scene! Focusing on its material properties, the gelatin-silver print gives a particular starkness to the image. It's fascinating how that printing process itself became a tool for documenting ruins in this era. Did Sommer have a studio, or was this entirely site-specific work? Curator: Sommer operated primarily out of Naples. So, while he had a studio, documenting sites like Pompeii and other landmarks would have been key to his practice, embedding the photographs with colonial narratives of discovery and preservation—or arguably, even exploitation of historical narratives. What choices, after all, led him to this street, this view? Editor: Those practical and ethical layers are so interesting. The light hitting the uneven paving stones emphasizes the wear, doesn't it? I mean, just imagine the physical labour, quarrying those stones, transporting them, fitting them... This street, in its time, would have been bustling with commerce, workshops, slaves. And it ended so suddenly. The image asks us to think about not just the 'what' but also the 'how' of this street and its fate. Curator: Absolutely. The street as both stage and testament to Roman society. And what this image communicates too is about memory, what has been preserved and more importantly, who it has been preserved for, that interplay of disaster, ruin, memory and class privilege in the modern reconstruction that even influences heritage today. Editor: Yes, by making this object using very particular photographic and distribution methods, and by capturing THIS particular perspective onto gelatin-silver, Sommer has transformed a place of labour and life and suffering, of organic decay, into an easily digestible piece of evidence – which also served tourism! It's all right there in the chemistry and composition, isn't it? Curator: He forces us to confront the complex layers of history and contemporary consumption tied into one place and picture. It prompts me to wonder, too, about all that has vanished from our view. Editor: Quite. This photo serves as a striking reminder that our access to the past is mediated, meticulously curated, and deeply implicated in social and material circumstances.