The Alpini gathering invites a harder kind of attention: one that recognizes community, listens to criticism, and refuses easy verdicts.
The annual Alpini gathering is one of those Italian events that resists easy judgment. This year it takes place in Genoa. These photographs were made in Rimini, the city where Ayzoh! is based, during a previous gathering.
Around the Alpini there are opposing narratives. Some people see only the community spirit: men and women who often show up after earthquakes, floods, and other emergencies, working with discipline and generosity. Others point to the reports of harassment that have accompanied some gatherings, and to the need to take women’s voices seriously.
Both things matter
A crowd is never a slogan. A tradition is never innocent by definition. A public celebration should never be used to excuse harmful behavior. At the same time, reducing thousands of people to a single label makes it harder to understand what is really happening in front of us.
Photography can help here, when it refuses propaganda and caricature. It stays with the faces, the bodies, the contradictions: laughter, beer, songs, uniforms, children, old men, women dancing, strangers embracing in the street.
The task is not to choose the easiest side. The task is to look carefully, name what must be named, and still leave room for human complexity.
