Inside the parties of American soldiers in Sicily The meeting of US soldiers and young people from Catania in the shots of Marco Coniglione

When we asked photographer Marco Coniglione what exactly an American Party in Sicily was, he admitted: «It's a bit difficult to describe it to someone who has never experienced one». And in fact, words are not enough to tell their chaotic, vital and somewhat impetuous atmosphere – the images are much better. Just the images, or in this case the photographs of the Ammeri Ca series, are the best tool to find yourself catapulted on those crowded dancefloors, in which «it almost feels like you're in a music video». The photographic series shows what happens during the parties that for many years have been going on near Catania, where the Sigonella Air Base is located, a Sicilian enclave of the American army 15 kilometers from Catania.

Over the course of twenty years, the relationship between locals and Americans has gone far beyond simple parties, opening up to deeper cultural exchanges but also coloring itself with a certain melancholy: «The ugly side was becoming attached to someone who would leave within three years. Sometimes people fell in love, more often it was just friendships», recounts Coniglione. What seems to emerge from the photographer's words, however, is the sense of a mutual encounter – that of Americans who meet the colorful culture of the South, with its jokes in dialect, its local food and its relaxation; but also that of the Sicilians who in the encounter with that little piece of America that is Sigonella find «a society free from prejudices, at least more than the ancient mentality still so rooted in Sicily».