It is unsurprising that, as her hometown continued to shape her personal imagery over the years, her debut book, “Un Mondo Proprio,” brings her distinctive vision of the people and places of Naples to the fore, starting from the young women who, she argues, still hold secondary roles in its representation—a portrayal set by “rigid gender norms and expectations.” Comprising some 100 images between intimate portraits, domestic still life and electrifying, nocturnal action shots, the volume, printed in June, allows us a nuanced glimpse inside the lives of Zagari’s closest girlfriends, also directing the attention to those of the women she serendipitously made along the way.
“For me, Naples is a city of extremes: peace and chaos, wealth and poverty, breathtaking beauty and stark reality,” the photographer says of the setting of her first monograph. The intensity, the rawness and the omnipresent life that make her love it are, at the same time, what frustrate her most about it. “Naples is unpolished, imperfect and undeniably real, and the emotions it stirs are just as raw: here, love and hate, joy and pain, never separate, but always intertwine.”