Alessandro Rizzi's Beirut port photos before the 2020 explosion

Photographer Alessandro Rizzi (born 1973 in Castelnovo di Sotto) captured the Beirut port area in 2010, a decade before the catastrophic ammonium nitrate explosion on August 4, 2020, which devastated the same location. Rizzi lived and worked in Beirut in 1999 and 2010, collaborating with local cultural institutions and galleries. His images, centered on the color white, depict the port as a "landscape that came back to life, perfect, dreamed." The article includes excerpts from Rizzi's diary from June 2010, where he describes the city's vibrant contemporary art scene, his encounters with writer Etel Adnan, and his reflections on photography as a means of presence and awareness. The 2017 exhibition "Beirut" curated by Hou Hanru and Giulia Ferracci at MAXXI in Rome previously highlighted the city's artistic vitality.