Index Naturae – Alternative version accompanies a second installation of the Index Naturae exhibition, hosted in Reggio Emilia as part of the nineteenth edition of Fotografia Europea. The publication offers a new interpretative key to the 116 photographic books on display, emphasizing the value of this collection as an open work. The attempt to organize, to systematise, according to criteria linked to the identification of recognizable lines of research, the different experiments, leaves room in this edition for the desire to build a new possible order in which each testimony can regain its autonomy. The appropriation of “already made” images, presented as photographs of photographs, whole or partial, in real format, toned in black and white, constitutes the method underlying the montage of images. The new combinations produce short circuits, change the original meanings of editorial productions, discover new possibilities. The collection of books is thus configured as an inexhaustible repository of possible stories, a territory of choice and decision, a world of multiplicity offered to everyone’s interpretation.