"I have seen this place before" brings together al selection of works from the What We Want project, an observatory composed of photographs and texts on the modification of the landscape seen as the projection of people's desires. The archive of the project that proceeds by accumulation includes works realized in about 150 cities on five continents. "I have seen this place before" connects contemporary photography and geopolitics, investigating the modification of the relationship between the work of art and society.

What We Want
(1996 - ongoing)
In 1996 Jodice inaugurated What We Want, a geopolitical atlas composed of photographs and texts on the modification of the landscape seen as the projection of people's desires. The archive of the project, which proceeds by accumulation, includes works realized in 170 metropolises on five continents over the course of a quarter of a century.
“The social landscape has always evolved in an autochthonous way, showing little interest in the policies and strategies of territorial governance. Today we can identify a new community of pioneers and actors accustomed to thinking of the city as a place detached from its own history, modifiable and willing to host the importation of models and suggestions from different cultures. These recent conditions have sharpened the ability of different human consortia to perform places, giving life to a landscape as a projection of our own desires. They are images that also reflect on the changes in gaze necessary to intercept a landscape that is no longer comprehensible from a single point of view. The nature of these new places attracts a democratic gaze that mixes the genres of topography, reportage, conceptual art, editing and writing, declaring the need to follow the changes in things in the world with a comprehensive gaze, comparing similar phenomena in different parts of the earth”.
- Francesco Jodice