4 museomag 01 ‘ 2015 RE-FRAMING ROMAN ANTIQUITY IMPERIUM ROMANUM BY ALFRED SEILAND Although Alfred Seiland’s photographic project on Roman Antiquity Imperium Romanum shows a great number of amphitheatres, ruins and other remains, it is not one of landscape or travel photography stric- tu sensu. Neither is it a documentation of the Roman architectural heritage. The first hints can be found at the very beginning, in the first two pictures, which were taken in 2006 at the Cinecittá studios and depict the set built for the television series Rome. These studios and sets are the birthplace of this body of work, and reveal Seiland’s cultural approach to the subject, going beyond artistic value and technical quality. As we walk through the exhibition and view its 101 photographs, we notice that the pictures are set in a contemporary context. Rather than solely showing Ro- man antiquity’s remains, shutting out everything that ‘does not fit’, Seiland opens the frame of his photo- graphs, incorporating contemporaneity and the way it interacts with those remains and influences. This incorporation of today’s life is full of purpose, and is represented for example in the busy gas station next to Rome’s Alexandrina aqueduct, or by people casually beaching among the ruins of Villa Nero on the Tyrrhe- nian coast of Anzio, or those of Tiberius’ Villa Iovis on Capri. Another approach shows how Roman Antiquity was reinvented, for example in the Getty Villa or in the casino Caesar’s Palace, both in the USA. They depict contemporary interpretations of the Roman way of life, the casino reminding us that gambling is Roman cul- tural heritage too. “THE STAR WARS SET IS A TONGUE-IN-CHEEK REFERENCE TO THE IDEA OF EMPIRE.” Yet another approach is revealed in the pictures that represent a mere cultural landscape with no visible re- mains or reconstructions, but laden with the invisible memory of Roman presence. They can depict quarries and mines, such as the still in use Pardais marble quar- ry in Portugal, a salt mine in Romania or the scarred The 101 pictures shown at the MNHA are set in a contemporary context © éric chenal