Le Vele di Scampia is a futuristic housing estate in northern Naples and a Camorra mafia crime syndicate battlefield. Conceived by Francesco di Salvo in the late 1970s, 'Le Vele' (The Sails) were being squatted by mafia families even before completion. Today the building complex is a symbol of the Camorra’s power in the Naples region and a key centre of European drug trafficking. Matteo Garrone shot his movie Gomorra based on the novel by Roberto Saviano on the site in 2008. German photographer Tobias Zielony’s film Le Vele di Scampia (2009) originates in this very place. Seven thousand single images, shot at night with a digital single-lens reflex camera, are used to create nine minutes of animated film. The book VELE is based on this animation, featuring a selection of 287 single images. A beautiful and unsettling series – which follow's Zielony's Jenny Jenny, Manitoba and Trona: Armpit of America – VELE arrives courtesy of the brilliant Spector Books (Leipzig).
576 pages, 20 x 26.5cm, paperback, Spector Books (Leipzig).