Elena Prola is an Italian photographer whose research focuses on the relationship between people and the contemporary landscape, observed through the social, cultural, and affective dynamics that take shape in the spaces of everyday life.
Spaces become fields of observation and relationship through which she investigates how people are recognised within the contexts they inhabit.
Her current work focuses on younger generations, where already established social forms come into tension with experiences that continue to change more rapidly than those forms can accommodate.
Photography becomes a tool for research before it becomes a means of representation: a way of staying with things, observing change as it unfolds, and conveying the complexity of experience without reducing it to fixed definitions. Her work seeks to open up a space for reflection on how we construct images of others and how these images, in turn, contribute to shaping the ways we inhabit society.
CV
EXHIBITIONS
2026 | Portfolio Readings Award Limite Mantova – Palazzo del Rigoletto, Mantova, Italy
2026 | La Notte della Fotografia, slideshow – Piacenza, Italy
2025 | La Forma del Ritratto, group exhibition – Palazzo del Broletto, Pavia, Italy
2025 | Narnimmaginaria, Circuito OFF, slideshow – Palazzo dei Priori, Narni, Italy
2025 | Ettore De Socio Photography Award – Museo Irpino, Avellino, Italy
2025 | Diecidecimi Art Festival – Ricetto di Candelo, Biella, Italy
2025 | Materia Paranoica, group exhibition – Le Serre, Udine, Italy
2025 | DIY Award 2025 – Spazio RAW, Milan, Italy
PUBLICATIONS
2026 | Urbanautica Institute Awards
2026 | Collateral AL
2025 | PHMuseum
2025 | Ettore De Socio Photography Award — Online Catalogue
AWARDS & SELECTIONS
2026| Urbanautica Institute Awards 2025, Shortlisted in People and Communities Category
2026| La Notte della Fotografia, Winning Project
2025| Limite Mantova – Portfolio Readings Award, Winner
2025| La Forma del Ritratto, Winning Project
2025| Ettore De Socio Photography Award, First Prize
2025| Narnimmaginaria – Circuito OFF, Selected Project
2025| Diecidecimi Art Festival, Selected Project
2025| DIY Award 2025, Shortlisted
ARTISTIC RESIDENCIES
2025 | Materia Paranoica – Le Serre + IDA Education, promoted by the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy
EDUCATION & MASTERCLASSES
2026 | Summer School SISF – Pieve Tesino, Italy
2026 | The Bridge Workshop with Mark Steinmetz & Irina Rozovsky – Vers-Pont-du-Gard, France
2026 | Regroup Workshop with Mark Steinmetz & Irina Rozovsky – Selected Participant
2026 | Stanley/Barker Masterclass – Selected Participant, Cambridge, UK
2024–2025 | The Soul and the Machine, Biennial Programme in Contemporary Photography, led by Nausicaa Giulia Bianchi