CLAUDIO MENNA
CLAUDIO MENNA
CLAUDIO MENNA
"LOBOS"
In the last years beheading of several criminal families related to Camorra System brought kids – as sons or grandchildren – taking power to control their business. Hungry to show their value and potential they created small and big group of "soldiers" known by media as "Baby gangs". With no rules and no mercy they always move in packs, often they rob and attack with the only sadistic taste to do it. In the last years in Naples there have been dozens of attacks against teenagers with a ferociy and brutality too similar to that of Roberto Saviano’s TV show “Gomorra”. First of them were sons - or related - to criminal leaders detained for life sentences or decades in prison; in a short while their attitude made a strange trend where kids and teens from difficult areas of the city turned themselves in baby gangsters following those behaviors of violence and anger, although they did not belong to criminal traditions.
On september 2015 during a "stesa" - a criminal attack made by young members of baby gangs which shoot with automatic weapons on air, forcing people to throw spread on ground (litterally "stesi al suolo") the young Gennaro Cesarano - a 16 yo teen from Rione Sanità - was accidentally killed. His death brought between the youngest of neighborhood, his closed friends, a wave of haterd difficult to be curbed. Associations, Ngo's and volunteers started an hard work to avoid a new kind of war, different from those made by Camorra leaders in '80s. A war without any kind of rules, and ethical limits.
Rione Sanità is a popular and historical district of Naples located inside the city belly, known by most for the every day news about criminal organizations, drugs dealing, murders and baby gangs, as almost every popular districts in Naples. Despite its recent emancipation where cultural aggregation points and associations are working hard to take away kids from streets and from a marked path, it’s always an unresolved issue. Total absence of government’s authorities creates for decades inside “Rione Sanità” a parallel world where survival entrusted to common sense often trampled by crime and their way to promise easy money for all neighborhood’s kids, for them indispensable as dealers or sentinels.
After the tv show “Gomorra”, crime and criminals have been projected in common imaginary as “Guest Stars”, stereotypes and model to follow for all those kids without any family support.
"Lobos" is a report started several years ago about last generation of kids and teens born after 2000's inside Rione Sanità, my mother's neighborhood; the main actors of this story are all connected directly or indirectly to what happened few years ago to Gennaro Cesarano, a 16yo teen accidentally mourdered during a criminal attack made by teens of a rival district.
"Lobos" is an anthropological report about the main cause which lead youngest who live in a popular neighborhood as Rione Sanità to take criminal paths. I tried to investigate - diving myself in this reality - how the absence of Government and Municipality affect their lives, made mostly, by family issues, school dropout, bad habits, traditions, religion and paganism, fake myths, smoke sellers and dealers of illusions. (Photo and text © Claudio Menna)
From Invisible Cities of Italo Calvino:
The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.
CLAUDIO MENNA
 Report on Ischia's landslide where 12 peope had been killed. POLITIKEN, NOV. 2022 |  Report on environmental pollution in Campania region published on Norvegian newspaper Aftenbladet. Friday, April 30th 2021 |  Report on environmental pollution in Campania region published on Norvegian newspaper Aftenbladet. Friday, April 30th 2021 |
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 Report on environmental pollution in Campania region published on Norvegian newspaper Aftenbladet. Friday, April 30th 2021 |  Report on environmental pollution in Campania inside the so called "Land of fires". |  Report on environmental pollution in Campania inside the so called "Land of fires". |
 Interview I made for Noisey Italia with Tony King, first italian transgender musician, from Naples. Photos and text © Claudio Menna |  Report on L'Espresso about violence from baby gangs in Italy, from North to South of the country |  Report on L'Espresso about violence from baby gangs in Italy, from North to South of the country |
 Inchiesta sui minori a rischio e sulla violenza delle baby gangs. Report on minors at risk and violence of baby gangs |  Inchiesta sui minori a rischio e sulla violenza delle baby gangs. Report on minors at risk and violence of baby gangs. |  Editorial work for CB - Enoteca Partenopea, Naples. Sept. 2020 |
 Editorial work for CB - Enoteca Partenopea, Naples. Sept. 2020 |  Editorial work for CB - Enoteca Partenopea, Naples. Sept. 2020 |  Editorial work for CB - Enoteca Partenopea, Naples. Sept. 2020 |
 Donna Moderna N°24 May 28th 2020 |  Sept. 20th 2019 |  Sept. 20th 2019 |
 August 6th 2019 |  August 6th 2019 |  In Viaggio Magazine. May 2019 |
 Published on Donna Moderna Magazine my latest work about Jorit Agoch, the revolutionary Neapolitan/Dutch street artist. Naples, April 4th 2019 |  Luigi de Magistris, le maire de Naples, a été le premier à s'opposer aux décisions du très xénophobe ministre de l'Intérieur. D'autres édiles ont suivi ainsi que des magistrats et des intellectuels. Jusqu'où ira la fronde ? |  San Gennaro, Maradona e gli altri: i graffiti di Jorit a Napoli Claudio Menna ha fotografato i ritratti dello street artist partenopeo e scambiato due chiacchiere con lui. |
 San Gennaro, Maradona e gli altri: i graffiti di Jorit a Napoli Claudio Menna ha fotografato i ritratti dello street artist partenopeo e scambiato due chiacchiere con lui. |  San Gennaro, Maradona e gli altri: i graffiti di Jorit a Napoli Claudio Menna ha fotografato i ritratti dello street artist partenopeo e scambiato due chiacchiere con lui. |  San Gennaro, Maradona e gli altri: i graffiti di Jorit a Napoli Claudio Menna ha fotografato i ritratti dello street artist partenopeo e scambiato due chiacchiere con lui. |
 RS/Boxe published on Sport Week - N°32 August 11th 2018 |  RS/Boxe published on Sport Week - N°32 August 11th 2018 |  RS/Boxe published on Sport Week - N°32 August 11th 2018 |
 Via Culinary Backstreets |  Via Culinary Backstreets |  Via Culinary Backstreets |
 Via Culinary Backstreets |  Via liberoquotidiano.it June 2018 |  Via worldcrunch.com - April 2018 |
 Il Reportage - Issue April 2018 |  Il Reportage - Issue April 2018 |  Il Reportage - Issue April 2018 |
 Panorama - Marzo 2018 |  Panorama - Marzo 2018 |  Panorama - Marzo 2018 |
 Panorama - Marzo 2018 |  Via worldcrunch.com - March 2018 |  via Hudson Institute - March 2018 |
 via Internazionale - Marzo 2018 |  via Internazionale - Gennaio 2018 |  via Internazionale - Gennaio 2018 |
 via Internazionale - Ottobre 2017 |  via Internazionale - Ottobre 2017 |  via Internazionale - Ottobre 2017 |
 via Internazionale - Ottobre 2017 |  Via VICE ITALY - December 2017 |  Via VICE ITALY - December 2017 |
 Via VICE ITALY - December 2017 |  Via VICE ITALY - December 2017 |  Via VICE ITALY - December 2017 |
 Via VICE ITALY - December 2017 |  Via VICE ITALY - December 2017 |  Via VICE ITALY - December 2017 |
 Via Amnesty International |  Via Amnesty International |  Via Amnesty International |
 Via Amnesty International |  Via Amnesty International |  Via Amnesty International |
 Via Amnesty International |  Via Amnesty International |  Via Amnesty International |
 Via Amnesty International |  Via Amnesty International |  Via Amnesty International |
 Via Amnesty International |  Via Amnesty International |  Via Amnesty International |
 Via Amnesty International |  Via Amnesty International |  Via Amnesty International |
 Via Amnesty International |  Via Amnesty International |  Via Amnesty International |
 Via Amnesty International |  Via Vice Italy |  |
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 |  |  Via Vice Italy |
 Via Vice Italy |  Via Vice Italy |  Via Vice Italy |
 Via Vice Italy |  Via Vice Italy |  Via GUP Magazine |
 Via GUP Magazine |  Via GUP Magazine |