CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia is pleased to announce the five emerging artists featured in the 2021 edition of the European programme FUTURES (EPP – European Photography Platform), a research platform on contemporary photography supported by the European Union and focused on mapping and supporting emerging artists beyond national borders.

The artists who will take part in the fourth year of FUTURES were chosen by Walter Guadagnini, director of CAMERA, and Giangavino Pazzola, curator of the photography centre and programme coordinator.

“Over a difficult year in terms of events, mobility and exchange,” comments Giangavino Pazzola, “FUTURES has allowed us even more to understand the value of creative exchange and relationships throughout the world of contemporary photography and young artists. Although most of the international activities took place online, we were still able to put all the photographers involved in the project in contact with curators and international experts, along with their peers, working on the training aspect. In July, we also managed to organise a live presentation of the research of those selected for 2020, while during the celebrations for CAMERA’s fifth anniversary at the beginning of October, we invited all the talented individuals we had selected – from the first to the last edition – to work on a major installation, staged on the external façade of our Turin headquarters.”

“These are moments which, as well as giving visibility to individuals,” continues Walter Guadagnini“made us feel part of a cohesive, international and active community. In this same group of young talents from the contemporary photography field, we are therefore pleased to welcome those selected for the fourth and final edition of the European project, with the idea of together facing the challenges of the contemporary world by innovative and participatory means: something which has always been a distinctive feature of FUTURES at CAMERA.”

The FUTURES 2021 participants:

Eleonora Agostini (Mirano, Venice, 1991) is an artist working in London and Venice. After graduating in Photography from the Istituto Europeo di Design in Milan (2013) and the Royal College of Art in London (2018), her practice includes photography, performance and sculpture, and is driven by an interest in reconsidering and redefining the everyday. Through the study of physical and psychological structures, she aims to investigate the ways in which human experience is constructed. She is interested in finding fractures and inconsistencies within social rules and conventions, as well as inhabited spaces. She was among the artists selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2019). Her work has been exhibited internationally in spaces such as L21 Gallery (Palma, 2020), Borough Road Gallery (London, 2020), Leeds Art Gallery and South London Gallery (2019/2020), MAR (Ravenna, 2019), the Format Festival (Derby, 2019) and the Premio Fabbri (Pieve di Soligo, 2018). Her project A Blurry Aftertaste is in the Government Art Collection and was published as a book in the Paper Journal Annual 2019.
Personal website: www.eleonoraagostini.com

Matteo de Mayda (Treviso, 1984) is a Venice-based photographer, represented by the Contrasto agency. After training as a self-taught photographer, his visual research focuses on reportage and portraiture, regarding phenomena related to social and environmental issues, the analysis of their causes and ensuing consequences. He has taken part in several exhibitions in Italy and abroad, exhibiting his works at the United Nations (Geneva, 2013), the Venice Architecture Biennale (Venice, 2016) and the Head On Photo Festival (Sydney, 2020). In 2019, he published Era Mare, a book dedicated to the phenomenon of the high tide in Venice and its impact on the territory and community, the proceeds of which went entirely to a support fund for the city’s small businesses. Awarded among the winners of the REFOCUS competition held by MIBACT – the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities for his work on Covid-19, he was selected by Artribune magazine as the best young Italian photographer of 2020.His images have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, British Journal of Photography, Internazionale, 6Mois, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Vogue and Vice.
Personal website: www.matteodemayda.com

Leonardo Magrelli (Rome, 1989), lives and works in Rome. After studying Architecture and Design at La Sapienza in Rome and then Art History, he began working as a graphic designer in the publishing field. His open approach to the manipulation and reuse of images and his strong focus on design and research are characteristics that would influence his practice even after his shift towards artistic photography. Since then, he has developed a personal path based on an awareness of the hybrid and ambiguous nature of imagery, often oscillating and blending a purely conceptual register with a more descriptive and documentary one. Alongside his personal research, he collaborates with the Vaste Programme collective, which he founded with Giulia Vigna and Alessandro Tini in 2017, to experiment more openly in the fields of installation and new media. His work has been exhibited in Italy and abroad, among other places, at the Magazzino (Rome, 2021), Giovane Fotografia Italiana (Reggio Emilia, 2020–21), Photo Open Up (Padua, 2020), Unseen Dummy Award (Amsterdam, 2019), Premio Fabbri (Pieve di Soligo, 2019), Odessa Photo Days (2019), Head On Photo Festival (Sydney, 2018) and the MoPLA (Los Angeles, 2017). In 2021, he published his first book West of Here through the US publisher Yoffy Press.
Personal website: www.leonardomagrelli.com

Giulia Parlato (Palermo, 1993) is an artist who lives and works in London and Palermo. She holds degrees in photography from the London College of Communication (2016) and the Royal College of Arts (2019). Her practice analyses the historical use of images as a document of truth, particularly in its scientific and forensic uses, and challenges this language, creating a new space in which mise-en-scèneis deployed. The melancholic and frustrating state caused by the human inability to understand the past is the foundation of her work, through which she explores stories, myths and cultural heritage using photography and video. Her work has won her the BJP International Photography Award (2021), the Innovate Grant (2020), the Camera Work Award (2020) and the Carte Blanche Éstudiants Award. She regularly exhibits in group and solo shows including those at the Podbielski Contemporary Gallery (Milan, 2021), Photo London Fair (London, 2020), Photo Fringe (Brighton, 2020), Palazzo Rasponi 2 (Ravenna, 2020), Photo Open Up (Padua, 2020), Paris Photo (Paris 2019) and the Soft Power Palace Festival (Stuttgart, 2018). Talks and works have been commissioned by Paris Photo, The Photographers’ Gallery, the Cambridge School of Visual & Performing Arts and Art Licks. She is a founding member of Ardesia Projects, a curating platform dedicated to contemporary photography, and the Carte Blanche Collective. Her works are to be found in both public and private collections.
Personal website: www.giuliaparlato.com

Silvia Rosi (Scandiano, Reggio Emilia, 1992) is an artist who lives and works in London and Modena.
After graduating in Photography from the London College of Communication (2016), her work traces her own personal history, drawing on her family’s Togolese heritage and the notion of roots. The theme is explored through self-portraits in which she plays her parents, recounting their experience of migration from Togo to Italy. Her images are influenced by the tradition of West African studio portraiture. Her work has been published by Foam and the British Journal of Photography among others, and selected for international residencies such as YGBI Research Residency (Florence, 2021) and that at the Thread Cultural Center and Residency (Sinthian, 2020). Her portraits have been awarded the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards and the Lens Culture Portrait Award (2020) and included in the British Journal of Photography project, Portrait of Britain (2020). Her work has been shown in exhibitions including the International Image Festival (Getxo, 2020) and the Athens Photo Festival (2020). She has received publishing commissions from The Financial Times, Wallpaper and The New Yorker as well as from Jerwood Arts/Photoworks, The Southbank Centre and Autograph ABP.
Personal website: www.silviarosi.com

The activities devised by CAMERA for FUTURES Photography 2021, compatible with the development of the pandemic regulations, will explore new approaches in the attempt to bring together the various functions that characterise the project: the conception, promotion, training and circulation of the selected artists and the projects they produce.

Besides CAMERA, the partners of FUTURES are FOMU Fotomuseum (Antwerp), PhotoEspaña (Madrid), TheBritish Journal of Photography (London), the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center (Budapest), the Foundation of Visual Education (Lodz), the Photo Romania Festival (Cluj), the Photo Ireland Foundation (Dublin), Festival d’Hyeres (Hyeres), Triennale der Photographie (Hamburg), The Calvert Journal (London), Copenhagen Photo Festival (Copenhagen), Tbilisi Photo Festival (Tbilisi) and Void (Athens).

FUTURES is co-financed by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia is pleased to announce the five emerging artists featured in the 2021 edition of the European programme FUTURES (EPP – European Photography Platform), a research platform on contemporary photography supported by the European Union and focused on mapping and supporting emerging artists beyond national borders.

The artists who will take part in the fourth year of FUTURES were chosen by Walter Guadagnini, director of CAMERA, and Giangavino Pazzola, curator of the photography centre and programme coordinator.

“Over a difficult year in terms of events, mobility and exchange,” comments Giangavino Pazzola, “FUTURES has allowed us even more to understand the value of creative exchange and relationships throughout the world of contemporary photography and young artists. Although most of the international activities took place online, we were still able to put all the photographers involved in the project in contact with curators and international experts, along with their peers, working on the training aspect. In July, we also managed to organise a live presentation of the research of those selected for 2020, while during the celebrations for CAMERA’s fifth anniversary at the beginning of October, we invited all the talented individuals we had selected – from the first to the last edition – to work on a major installation, staged on the external façade of our Turin headquarters.”

“These are moments which, as well as giving visibility to individuals,” continues Walter Guadagnini“made us feel part of a cohesive, international and active community. In this same group of young talents from the contemporary photography field, we are therefore pleased to welcome those selected for the fourth and final edition of the European project, with the idea of together facing the challenges of the contemporary world by innovative and participatory means: something which has always been a distinctive feature of FUTURES at CAMERA.”

The FUTURES 2021 participants:

Eleonora Agostini (Mirano, Venice, 1991) is an artist working in London and Venice. After graduating in Photography from the Istituto Europeo di Design in Milan (2013) and the Royal College of Art in London (2018), her practice includes photography, performance and sculpture, and is driven by an interest in reconsidering and redefining the everyday. Through the study of physical and psychological structures, she aims to investigate the ways in which human experience is constructed. She is interested in finding fractures and inconsistencies within social rules and conventions, as well as inhabited spaces. She was among the artists selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2019). Her work has been exhibited internationally in spaces such as L21 Gallery (Palma, 2020), Borough Road Gallery (London, 2020), Leeds Art Gallery and South London Gallery (2019/2020), MAR (Ravenna, 2019), the Format Festival (Derby, 2019) and the Premio Fabbri (Pieve di Soligo, 2018). Her project A Blurry Aftertaste is in the Government Art Collection and was published as a book in the Paper Journal Annual 2019.
Personal website: www.eleonoraagostini.com

Matteo de Mayda (Treviso, 1984) is a Venice-based photographer, represented by the Contrasto agency. After training as a self-taught photographer, his visual research focuses on reportage and portraiture, regarding phenomena related to social and environmental issues, the analysis of their causes and ensuing consequences. He has taken part in several exhibitions in Italy and abroad, exhibiting his works at the United Nations (Geneva, 2013), the Venice Architecture Biennale (Venice, 2016) and the Head On Photo Festival (Sydney, 2020). In 2019, he published Era Mare, a book dedicated to the phenomenon of the high tide in Venice and its impact on the territory and community, the proceeds of which went entirely to a support fund for the city’s small businesses. Awarded among the winners of the REFOCUS competition held by MIBACT – the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities for his work on Covid-19, he was selected by Artribune magazine as the best young Italian photographer of 2020.His images have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, British Journal of Photography, Internazionale, 6Mois, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Vogue and Vice.
Personal website: www.matteodemayda.com

Leonardo Magrelli (Rome, 1989), lives and works in Rome. After studying Architecture and Design at La Sapienza in Rome and then Art History, he began working as a graphic designer in the publishing field. His open approach to the manipulation and reuse of images and his strong focus on design and research are characteristics that would influence his practice even after his shift towards artistic photography. Since then, he has developed a personal path based on an awareness of the hybrid and ambiguous nature of imagery, often oscillating and blending a purely conceptual register with a more descriptive and documentary one. Alongside his personal research, he collaborates with the Vaste Programme collective, which he founded with Giulia Vigna and Alessandro Tini in 2017, to experiment more openly in the fields of installation and new media. His work has been exhibited in Italy and abroad, among other places, at the Magazzino (Rome, 2021), Giovane Fotografia Italiana (Reggio Emilia, 2020–21), Photo Open Up (Padua, 2020), Unseen Dummy Award (Amsterdam, 2019), Premio Fabbri (Pieve di Soligo, 2019), Odessa Photo Days (2019), Head On Photo Festival (Sydney, 2018) and the MoPLA (Los Angeles, 2017). In 2021, he published his first book West of Here through the US publisher Yoffy Press.
Personal website: www.leonardomagrelli.com

Giulia Parlato (Palermo, 1993) is an artist who lives and works in London and Palermo. She holds degrees in photography from the London College of Communication (2016) and the Royal College of Arts (2019). Her practice analyses the historical use of images as a document of truth, particularly in its scientific and forensic uses, and challenges this language, creating a new space in which mise-en-scèneis deployed. The melancholic and frustrating state caused by the human inability to understand the past is the foundation of her work, through which she explores stories, myths and cultural heritage using photography and video. Her work has won her the BJP International Photography Award (2021), the Innovate Grant (2020), the Camera Work Award (2020) and the Carte Blanche Éstudiants Award. She regularly exhibits in group and solo shows including those at the Podbielski Contemporary Gallery (Milan, 2021), Photo London Fair (London, 2020), Photo Fringe (Brighton, 2020), Palazzo Rasponi 2 (Ravenna, 2020), Photo Open Up (Padua, 2020), Paris Photo (Paris 2019) and the Soft Power Palace Festival (Stuttgart, 2018). Talks and works have been commissioned by Paris Photo, The Photographers’ Gallery, the Cambridge School of Visual & Performing Arts and Art Licks. She is a founding member of Ardesia Projects, a curating platform dedicated to contemporary photography, and the Carte Blanche Collective. Her works are to be found in both public and private collections.
Personal website: www.giuliaparlato.com

Silvia Rosi (Scandiano, Reggio Emilia, 1992) is an artist who lives and works in London and Modena.
After graduating in Photography from the London College of Communication (2016), her work traces her own personal history, drawing on her family’s Togolese heritage and the notion of roots. The theme is explored through self-portraits in which she plays her parents, recounting their experience of migration from Togo to Italy. Her images are influenced by the tradition of West African studio portraiture. Her work has been published by Foam and the British Journal of Photography among others, and selected for international residencies such as YGBI Research Residency (Florence, 2021) and that at the Thread Cultural Center and Residency (Sinthian, 2020). Her portraits have been awarded the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards and the Lens Culture Portrait Award (2020) and included in the British Journal of Photography project, Portrait of Britain (2020). Her work has been shown in exhibitions including the International Image Festival (Getxo, 2020) and the Athens Photo Festival (2020). She has received publishing commissions from The Financial Times, Wallpaper and The New Yorker as well as from Jerwood Arts/Photoworks, The Southbank Centre and Autograph ABP.
Personal website: www.silviarosi.com

The activities devised by CAMERA for FUTURES Photography 2021, compatible with the development of the pandemic regulations, will explore new approaches in the attempt to bring together the various functions that characterise the project: the conception, promotion, training and circulation of the selected artists and the projects they produce.

Besides CAMERA, the partners of FUTURES are FOMU Fotomuseum (Antwerp), PhotoEspaña (Madrid), TheBritish Journal of Photography (London), the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center (Budapest), the Foundation of Visual Education (Lodz), the Photo Romania Festival (Cluj), the Photo Ireland Foundation (Dublin), Festival d’Hyeres (Hyeres), Triennale der Photographie (Hamburg), The Calvert Journal (London), Copenhagen Photo Festival (Copenhagen), Tbilisi Photo Festival (Tbilisi) and Void (Athens).

FUTURES is co-financed by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.