The artists nominated by
The 2023 selection of CAMERA-FUTURES artists considers the contextual dynamics that characterise the Italian art scene from two different points of view: structural and artistic. The lack of public funds and programs to support young and mid-career artists who work with the photographic medium is a starting point for tracing the perimeter of our observation. Then, from a methodological point of view, we have directed the research within the national artistic scenario, analysing the works of national and international artists currently based and active in our country.
The selected artists were those who most explored the technological, linguistic and poetic evolutions of the photographic medium. In this sense, the six cases identified constitute a cross-section that tells some of the most recent aesthetic trends in the field of contemporary image-making in Italy. The research of these artists describes the nature of a partial and continuously transitioning medium using cameras, VR, AI and other tools to generate images and stories. Photography for them has an expanded and hybrid meaning that often highlights repeated interactions with textual, performative and physical aspects.
Deeply rooted in the Italian photographic tradition, their research renews the ways of narrating two of the main recurring themes in photography from our country: landscape and society. This selection not only highlights the evolution of documentary towards a photography that emerges from the confirmation of the existing, but also towards one that engages more creative and symbolic registers in the invention of possible imaginaries. Their photography is an act of visual deconstruction of space, values and meaning of contemporary times.
In short, our selection is linked to photographic art in the Italian context, chosen through a democratic process, and furthermore, it is inclusive in the desire to keep documentary registers together with other, more experimental ones.
Nicola Di Giorgio (b. 1994) graduated in Graphic Design from the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo, continuing his studies in Photography at the ISIA in Urbino. With an interdisciplinary approach, his research focuses on the landscape; he investigates contemporary society from scientific, socio-cultural and formal perspectives to identify various correlations between art and science. He combines these methodologies with collecting as an artistic and taxonomic research practice. In 2022, Di Giorgio received the Graziadei Prize for Photography, in co-production with the MAXXI - National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome. Since 2023, he has worked as a professor at NABA-New Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. His works are found in several public and private collections.
Sara Scanderebech (b. 1985) is a Milan-based photographer and visual artist. She studied Visual Arts at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts before beginning her career as a photographer at Galleria Carla Sozzani. Her work moves between art, fashion and design, involving close collaboration with a range of artists, brands and magazines. For Scanderebech, photography is a medium for investigating reality and creating new imaginaries. In her projects – which have been exhibited in a range of galleries and festivals – details of plants, animals, objects and bodies become new metaphors and contemporary symbols. Since 2017, Scanderebech has managed the bookshop at Paradise: a Marsèll concept store based in Milan.
Alessandro Zoboli (b. 1990) graduated from the Istituto Italiano di Fotografia in 2014. Between 2015 and 2019 he worked in Alex Majoli’s studio as an assistant, refining his skills as a photographer, printer and retoucher. In 2019 he joined Cesura Agency as an official member. Over the past years he has worked on a number of different long-term projects exploring the relationship between North Africa and Europe. Zoboli has also documented the Covid-19 pandemic and housing crisis in Italy; travelling the country from North to South, he photographs the conditions of inequality that characterise western societies, highlighting the forgotten discomfort experienced by millions of families. His ongoing Shine On project explores the multifaceted and elusive face of today’s Britain: a liquid form, constantly changing and contradicting itself in search of a new identity.
Zoe Natale Mannella was born in 1997 in London and raised in the south of Italy. She is a self-taught photographer whose projects investigate questions of intimacy and sexuality, particularly in relation to women. Her work combines elements of reportage with an interest in staged photography.
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