Album San Lorenzo: collective photo archive of Rome's San Lorenzo district

Album San Lorenzo is a participatory project collecting private photographs from residents of Rome's San Lorenzo district to build a digitized collective archive. The initiative is promoted by Sapienza University and the Istituto Superiore di Fotografia, under the patronage of Municipio Roma II. Ten art history students from the university and ISFCI, coordinated by photographer Alessandro Imbriaco, are involved. Imbriaco's research methodologies, previously used for Archivio Bellosguardo and #scenedaunpatrimonio, underpin the project. These earlier works, promoted by the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, focus on collecting private photos and exploring the relationship between vernacular photography, local identity, and cultural heritage. The project has two phases: collection, scanning, and archiving of photos submitted by citizens (either at a collection point or uploaded to scenedaunpatrimonio.beniculturali.it), followed by restitution through neighborhood initiatives and a final exhibition at the Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea della Sapienza by the end of the year. The archive will remain accessible on the MLAC portal and the Scenedaunpatrimonio portal curated by the Istituto per il Catalogo e la Documentazione.