By matteo Posted on

Confine

Square

A book about how the Italian city of Como and its railway station, on the border between Italy and Switzerland, became a refugee camp.

In the summer of 2016, hundreds of migrants, trying to reach Northern Europe through Switzerland, were blocked at the Swiss-Italian border. For nearly three months, up to 500 migrants were forced to camp in the park outside Como’s railway station, as they waited to learn their future.

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This book is a compilation of images taken during the emergency by photographers Mattia Vacca and Emanuele Amighetti. It also contains a curated selection of articles published at the time of the crisis. The book reflects the events as they happened and the reaction of the city of Como, forced to face its long-forgotten status as a border town.
Confine philip di salvo mattia vacca giovanni marchi design for migration confine como migration refugees crisis
Images included in the book were originally featured on international publications. Mattia Vacca’s photos have been published by Die Zeit (Germany), Corriere della Sera, La Stampaand Open Migration (Italy). His work about Como won the Premio Vergani for 2016’s best Italian webdoc.  Emanuele Amighetti’s work has been published byPolitico Europe (Belgium), Open Migration and The Towner (Italy). His work about Como won an Award of Excellence at Society for News Design Competition.

Besides original content, texts included in the book were originally published by The Towner(Italy) and Open Migration (Italy). The book is in English and Italian translations are provided.

Philip Di Salvo (editor) is a researcher and a journalist. He's currently based at Università della Svizzera italiana (Lugano, Switzerland) where he's working on his PhD on digital whistleblowing. His areas of interest include whistleblowing, Internet surveillance, military drone strikes and the relationship between hacking and journalism. He also covers these issues for Wired, Motherboard and other publications. He also works as Italian editor for The European Journalism Observatory.

Mattia Vacca (photographer) is a freelance photojournalist and a documentary photographer. He was a daily contributor for Il Corriere della Sera covering breaking news stories in Northern Italy. His first self-published photobook, A Winter’s Tale, came out in 2014. His work has been featured on New Republic, The Guardian, The Indipendent, ZEIT, France Soir, BBC, VICE, Vanity Fair, Elle Decor, Private Photoreview, L'Oeil de la Photographie, Il Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica and La Stampa among the others. He received numerous awards, including Sony World Photography Awards, Royal Photographic Society Awards, Unesco Humanity Photo Awards, Renaissance Prize, New York Photo Awards, International Photography Awards, Foto 8 Summershow and Phodar Biennial. His photographs have been exhibited in galleries and festivals worldwide. He was also a TEDx speaker.

Emanuele Amighetti (photographer) is a freelance documentary photographer focused on social issues and the aftermath of war. His works have been published on Wired, Vice, Politico Europe, Open Society Foundations, PDN, Lenscratch, Panorama, L'Espresso, Pagina 99, OpenMigration and Lettera 43 among the others. His photographs have been exhibited in galleries and festivals in Italy, Greece, Australia, and the UK. He was recipient of various awards including PDN Photo Annual, PX3 Prix de la Photographie, Head on Photo Festival Awards, Lenscratch Student Prize and Belfast Photo Festival. He is one of the artists exhibiting at this year's edition of Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles (FR) and Phodar Biennial (BG). He is one of the selected photographers to attend the Eddie Adams Workshop in October 2017.

Giovanni Marchi (visual designer) is a graphic designer and art director from Olbia, Sardinia. He collaborated with Danese Milano, Mousse Magazine and Studio Tinaa. In the last years he worked for clients such as Super Sunglasses, Swatch, Yamakawa, Viafarini, Fondazione Morra Greco. Since 2013 Giovanni works at Accurat as head of visual.