Gian Marco Sanna’s ‘The City of Snow’ Documents Rome’s Malagrotta Landfill

Photographer Gian Marco Sanna spent three years documenting the Malagrotta landfill in Rome, the largest in Europe, and its surrounding environmental devastation. His series, titled 'The City of Snow' and published by Urbanautica in 2017, was presented at Paris Photo. Sanna, a resident of the area, began photographing after noticing a mountain of waste from his terrace. He discovered that the landfill was built over an aquifer, with leachate contaminating the Rio Galeria. Initially focusing on waste and illegal dumps, he shifted to nocturnal flash photography to evoke the hidden, monstrous quality of the pollution. The first image that spurred him was of purple water. The project culminated in a local exhibition where residents were shocked to learn the photos were taken 500 meters from their homes. Sanna notes that conditions have worsened since he began.