Terra Infecta
A Moving Border
Rights of Future Generations
Arrivederci ad Arborea
EXHIBITIONS
Vulnerable Beings
Medical Borders
PEDAGOGY
Al Masha + Difficult Heritage
The Interior Inside Out
CRITICISM
andrea.bagnato
[at] me.com
MACK Books, January 2026
978-1-917651-24-0
12.5 x 18 cm, 304 pp.
Southern Italy is now a glamorous tourist destinations. Yet it was long haunted by associations with disease and uncleanliness, on the basis of frequent epidemics and of its inhabitants’ alleged barbarity. This narrative study shows how sanitation and its metaphors were central to Italy’s internal colonialism, and how the notion of a pathological “south” opposed to a functional “north” persists there just as elsewhere.
Terra Infecta is a counterhistory of the urban and rural landscapes of Italy. It charts the disappearance of the Venetian wetlands, urban renewal and displacement in Naples and Matera, and protocols of containment in Milan. It is at once a critique of modern hygiene, and a collection of revelatory moments of community, healing, and resistance.
Terra Infecta is based on a long-term project initiated in 2016, which has also resulted in lectures, workshops, articles, and exhibitions. The research was supported by Het Nieuwe Instituut, the Graham Foundation, FBSR, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
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