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.

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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.

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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.

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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.