Roberto Sibilano’s Black-and-White Masserie di Puglia at Gioia del Colle

Photographer Roberto Sibilano’s exhibition “Masserie di Puglia” is on view until May 20 at the Biblioteca Comunale di Gioia del Colle, near Bari. The series documents the fortified farmhouses (masserie) of the Apulian hinterland, capturing their stark, defensive architecture in black and white. Sibilano’s images emphasize closed volumes, high perimeter walls, and internal courtyards designed to protect crops and people from attacks. The work avoids romantic clichés, presenting the masserie as pragmatic, self-sufficient structures born of necessity. The black-and-white treatment strips away the region’s vivid colors—blue sky, green olive groves—to reveal the buildings’ skeletal geometry, a dialogue between rigorous linearity (main body, annexed churches) and organic forms (trulli). The churches are depicted not only as religious spaces but as social and affective centers of rural communities. Sibilano’s approach is neither pure documentation nor nostalgic; it is a stance that urges viewers to recognize the silent dignity of this rural heritage and resist treating it as mere backdrop. The article is by Roberta Ruggieri.