This photographic project is the result of a personal need, to understand what drives a man to live day by day, without a home and with no certainty.
In September 2008 I moved to Rome. I felt the need to move.
I daily used to visit the Roma Termini railway station for logistical and practical reasons and since the very beginning I was fascinated from the size of the station and the large number of people that visit it. I quickly realized that this was a place I wanted to live.
I always liked to explore the same floor, the ground floor, from there the title, because it is the largest and most affordable for all. Of course it’s photography that inspires me to live deeply my experiences.
In all my wanderings there were always others, commonly called “homeless”, but not for me, they were my real search, my true reason to search.
One day I decided to go over and try to have an exchange with one of them and immediately I felt from them a great desire of dialogue and to be told, especially a desire of exchange; that same need i first felt, but upside down.
Human exchanges were daily and constantly changing, and over time I enjoyed finding the same people: Massimiliano Bruno, Ettore ….
From that moment I decided to listen to everything, especially their personal stories and the reasons of their choice of life. I decided to register all of their stories on a tape with an audio recorder that one of them decided to give me. At the same time i worked on capturing images that could tell about them and the context where they lived in.
I did this job for about ten months after which I noticed something had changed, especially I noticed a great silence.
This change was caused by a changing of the station, new railway lines, new trains and increased presence of law enforcement.
From then on it was totally empty, especially by night, when the main exchange between us used to happen. All doors were closed, everything was under control. Everybody was out!
After these changes I stopped going to the station because it was
empty, I felt too much quiet, I was no longer motivated.
