At Spallanzani, a permanent photographic exhibition to remember the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. To remember and honour the effort and sacrifice of those months.
The photos were taken by the photographer Massimo Berruti
An Italian stronghold against the pandemic, a national and international reference point during those months that rewrote world history, Spallanzani is hosting a permanent photographic exhibition to remember the extraordinary fight against COVID-19.
The exhibition will be hosted, starting from 5th May, in the lobby of the so-called “New Hospital“. This choice is not accidental as it is the main hub of the National Institute for Infectious Diseases.
The exhibition, as explained by the General Director of INMI, Cristina Matranga, “is born with the intention of reminding everyone and honouring the effort and sacrifice experienced during those months, years, by all the doctors, nurses and workers at Spallanzani and the entire National Health Service“. Matranga, who promoted the initiative, also added, “We also want to highlight the necessity of not forgetting the great lesson learned from the pandemic: a lesson of fear and courage, science and humanity, suffering and rebirth, and above all, of ‘community’, as highlighted by Pope Francis in the letter he sent to Spallanzani on 17th April 2020″. It was precisely the words of Pope Francis, who in the same letter wrote, “Only together can we make it,” that inspired the title of the exhibition, aptly named “Only Together Can We Make It. +39 outbreak”.
The exhibition will feature the stunning photographs by the photographer and RUFA lecturer, Massimo Berruti who captured some of the most iconic, emblematic and intense moments of the pandemic, portraying the workers during those difficult and exhausting days of struggle and hope, care and research. Indeed, as a Research and Care Institute of Scientific Character, as well as a national reference point for infectious diseases, Spallanzani has assisted thousands of patients, starting from the first Italian cases with the hospitalisation of the Chinese couple, and conducted and completed research of fundamental importance, such as the isolation and sequencing of the virus, which was later shared with colleagues worldwide. Not to mention the administration of the first vaccine doses.
Photographer Massimo Berruti explains the genesis of this photographic service: “The curiosity to ‘go and see’, after the first week of lockdown, overcame the fear of the unknown. The post-human landscape that the bustling capital had turned into had a sombre yet irresistible allure, where everything seemed new, different, and the pervasive silence was broken only by the sound of ambulance sirens. It was following that sound that the doors to another world opened, a world in shock but in a frantic fight for life, a world made up of many small, great heroes. It is they who inspired this work, and now this exhibition, not by chance, at the INMI Spallanzani. An exhibition made to stay and remember, in the place that represented the epicentre of the National Health response to COVID-19“.
