Sub Sole (Latin: “beneath the sun”) is a photobook by Massao Mascaro, published by Chose Commune, made between 2017 and 2020 across the Mediterranean. The work follows the mythic itinerary of Ulysses while staying close to present-day realities: borders, crossings, and the lives of people moving through Ceuta, Naples, Athens, Palermo, Istanbul, Tunis, and Lampedusa. Sub Sole keeps the Mediterranean as both geography and narrative field, where politics and everyday presence coexist.
Across 168 pages, Mascaro sequences 81 duotone photographs that read as encounters rather than reportage. The images carry a soft focus, tight cropping, and shallow depth of field, creating a tactile surface. In Sub Sole, the Mediterranean is not a backdrop but a lived space marked by displacement. Text by Federico Clavarino accompanies the work, adding an additional layer of reading without steering the photographs.
