Photographic exhibition by Maddalena Stefanelli (aka Leni Frau) of the similarities between the port cities of Genoa and Mombasa.
Zeinab, the precious beauty.
The meaning of this Arabic name is the first link that jumps to the eye, or rather to the ear, looking for a similarity between the maritime cities, ports of Genoa and Mombasa.
From Zeinab, the Precious, to Zena (in Ligurian dialect), the Superb.
But there are other connections between the Italian and Kenyan most important ports: both protected and conquered by the sea, both destroyed and rebuilt (Genoa by Hannibal’s army, Mombasa by the Portuguese conquerors) and equally willing to welcome, trade, the temptation to colonize and inevitably to be colonized.
Two multi-ethnic cities, specularly captivated by the Islamic-Christian religious dichotomy.
In the ancient corners that bear the same name (“Città Vecchia” of Genova translated means “Old Town” as in Mombasa) you will find similar places and stories where the trade of everything is mixed with the ancestral constant rhythm of sea life, scents and characters as the different people who crowd them.
Places where progress tries to penetrate but almost always remains at the margins or comes with respect, expanding into other streets and neighborhoods, adding contrasts to the many similarities and erasing the obvious and inevitable differences.
Lanes, balconies, historic buildings next to modern buildings, parabolic antennas and hanging clothes, wide busy streets and secret passages, market stalls and shops, with their characters.
In the photographs of Maddalena Stefanelli (a.k.a. Leni Frau), a profound connoisseur of the two realities, one enters into these nuances to the point of merging, losing oneself and finding oneself in a single reality that, taking from the past and from history, offers a socio-geographical look at the present, useful for reading and hypothesizing its future.
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