This is an unpublished project premiered today on C41 Magazine.
Giuseppe Giammetta has 35 years old and he lives between Matera and New York. Freelance creative director, designer, and photographer with extensive experience in furniture design and branding. He likes everything that is nostalgic and timeless things, he collects objects and printed pictures of the ’60s, 70’s, and 80’s era. He likes walking behind people that he doesn’t know trying to imagine their life and what they had for breakfast.
About Never again the same – words by Giuseppe Giammetta:
Summer 2020, the Big Apple shone much brighter during the pandemic. I thought that the absence of people in the streets allowed more light to reflect on surfaces; I felt I was in a city completely different from the New York that everyone knows. People in the street moved at a pace slower than usual, they were quiet and respectful of the city, an atmosphere I will never forget. Those who have never lived in New York are lucky they will never regret all the iconic places that closed forever, and that contained the soul and history of the city.
Among the people I met there is Pastor Henry Thomas Alexander, a 70-year-old African American who often roamed my neighborhood in Brooklyn with a briefcase in his hand and a pen in his pocket, impeccably dressed, proud. He had magically crossed my path, a man from another era. At seven o’clock in the evening, every day people would come to their windows or go out into the street to applaud or bang pots and pans for a minute, in gratitude for the effort that doctors and nurses were making every day to save lives in hospitals. There was a strong sense of community. On park benches I could always spot retired New Yorkers reading a book or watching passerby’s. In Central Park there were people fishing. Times Square was almost completely desolate, and the smell of the air had completely changed. Unfortunately, after this pandemic, New York will be a completely different city, renewed. I feel blessed to have experienced the last few years of its former spirit.