The English word home, meaning both ‘house’ and ‘homeland’ (as a real or symbolic place where one feels rooted, in their own environment), encapsulates the two concepts on which the work is based. We started from the old casa di ringhiera where we live to discover the other ‘homes’ of its inhabitants, trying to understand each person’s relationship with the place they come from and the one they live in now.

In our building live many people from other cities and regions of Italy, as well as from various parts of the world (France, Albania, Romania, United States, Ecuador, Peru, the Philippines, New Zealand). We went in search of these distant neighbors using an old pretext: having coffee together.

We offered coffee to our neighbors by bringing our moka pot into their homes, which appears in every photo as the only recurring element—sign of our presence and symbol of this social ritual. During these visits, we took photographs and gathered stories.

The color photographs, taken without altering the lighting or setting of the various interiors, capture spontaneous moments of conversation and show how each apartment is a piece of the world within the microcosm of the building.

The stories emerged in a coffee-chat atmosphere rather than through formal interviews. The only question, asked at the beginning, was really just an explanation of the project. This very generic and neutral input, combined with the pleasant sense of hospitality that always developed, prompted deep responses—intimate accounts of each person’s life.