“Avere Vent’Anni”: 20 Years of Youth at Fotografia Europea

Reggio Emilia hosts top photography exhibitions April 24–June 8, 2025

becoming once again the beating heart of contemporary photography with the 20th edition of Fotografia Europea. One of Italy’s most important cultural events, the festival returns with the theme “Avere vent’anni” (“Being Twenty”), reflecting both a significant anniversary and a bold inquiry into the identities, anxieties, and hopes of today’s youth—especially the Gen Z generation.

This landmark edition, promoted by Fondazione Palazzo Magnani and the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, with the support of the Emilia-Romagna Region, transforms the city into a large-scale exhibition, connecting some of its most iconic venues: the Chiostri di San Pietro, Palazzo da Mosto, Palazzo dei Musei, Biblioteca Panizzi, Spazio Gerra, and a vibrant Circuito Off of independent spaces.

A Collective Portrait of Being Twenty

Curated by Walter Guadagnini, Tim Clark, and Luce Lebart, the 2025 edition of Fotografia Europea captures the spirit of a generation standing at the threshold of adulthood in a world marked by instability, protest, and transformation. The chosen theme, Avere vent’anni, is not merely a celebration of the festival’s two-decade journey; it is also a mirror held up to today’s young people—exploring their battles, ambitions, dreams, and disillusionments through the lens of contemporary photography.

In an age where identity is often fluid and contested, the featured works dig deep into personal and political narratives, touching on themes of climate activism, civil resistance, gender identity, and digital life. The exhibitions move beyond static imagery to embrace immersive and multimedia experiences, transforming each into a story you can step into exhibition.

Chiostri di San Pietro: The Core of the Festival

The Chiostri di San Pietro hosts a dynamic selection of ten exhibitions, each offering a different window into the complexities of youth and the power of photography. Highlights include:

• “Slowly and Then All at Once” by Andy Sewell, a poetic and urgent look at environmental activism and its tensions with political power. Sewell composes large-scale images that function like storyboards, layering moments of protest with eerie calm, creating a profound narrative rhythm.
• “You Don’t Die” by Iranian photo editors Ghazal Golshiri and Marie Sumalla, explores the aftermath of Mahsa Amini’s death, placing viewers amid social media footage of protests banned in Iran. The exhibition immerses us in a defiant act of remembrance through movement, dance, and voice.
• “How Was Your Dream?” by Thaddé Comar is a haunting series documenting masked youth in Hong Kong’s uprisings. Portraits are suspended overhead, evoking a sense of anonymity and silent resistance under oppressive surveillance.
• “Raves and Riots” by Vinca Petersen reveals an alternative form of protest—rave culture—as an act of freedom, community, and subversion. Through polaroids and sculptural installations, she shares her nomadic journey through Europe’s underground.
• “Mal de Mer” by Claudio Majorana captures melancholic Lithuanian youth in emotionally resonant portraits that echo Renaissance stillness and 19th-century romanticism. A single diptych—a sorrowful girl paired with an aerial image of intersecting roads—encapsulates the indecision of early adulthood.
• “We Are Carver” by Jessica Ingram takes us into a high school in Georgia, USA, where young people strive for a better future. The project is rich in detail, offering one of the most powerful reflections on youth identity and class struggle.
• “Control Refresh” by Toma Gherzha, a Russian-Dutch photographer, explores the daily lives of Gen Z across Europe and Russia, contrasting traditional values with digital realities. Her series was abruptly interrupted by the invasion of Ukraine, adding a layer of tension to the visual narrative.
• “IFUCKTOKYO – DUAL MAIN CHARACTER” by Kido Mafon is a frenetic portrait of Tokyo’s underground culture, captured on analog film and bursting with anti-conformist energy.
• “Frammenti” by Karla Hiraldo Voleau borrows from Pasolini’s Comizi d’Amore, combining portraits and handwritten interviews to explore love, sexuality, and gender among young people.
• “Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective”, the only Italian stop for the renowned Japanese artist. Curated by Thyago Nogueira and organized by Instituto Moreira Salles in collaboration with the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation, with the support of the Japan Foundation. Daido Moriyama began his career as a photojournalist in postwar Japan during the U.S. military occupation and rapid Westernization. His early work already hinted at a unique aesthetic that gradually moved away from reportage toward a raw, high-contrast black-and-white style, exemplified in his On the Road series (1968–1972). He developed a gritty visual language summarized by the mantra are, bure, boke (“grainy, blurry, out of focus”), fully expressed in his radical 1972 photobook Farewell Photography, which questioned photography’s ability to reflect reality. After a period of crisis, he returned in the 1980s with introspective series like Light and Shadow and Memories of a Dog. Later works like Labyrinth (2012) and Pretty Woman (2017) reflect on his career and engage with consumer culture through color. The exhibition also highlights his lifelong interest in magazines, particularly his involvement with Provoke and his own publication Record, which he revived in 2006 and continues to publish.

Ghirri, Memory, and the Next Generation

At Palazzo dei Musei, the festival revisits the legacy of Luigi Ghirri, one of Italy’s most influential photographers. “Luigi Ghirri. Lezioni di fotografia”, curated by Ilaria Campioli, explores his teaching philosophy and poetic approach to landscape and visual language.

Also at the museum, the Giovane Fotografia Italiana | Premio Luigi Ghirri highlights emerging talent. This year, Davide Sartori won with “The Shape of Our Eyes, Other Things I Wouldn’t Know”, an intimate and psychological exploration of father-son relationships.

Meanwhile, Spazio Gerra marks the 80th anniversary of the Resistance with “Volpe Laila Slim e gli altri”, a exhibition that draws parallels between the struggles of young partisans in WWII and the youth of today still fighting for justice and freedom.

A Living Platform for Contemporary Photography

Fotografia Europea 2025 is more than a festival—it’s a platform that continues to challenge, provoke, and inspire through the medium of photography. With installations, rare photobooks, performances, talks, and workshops, it invites both professionals and the general public to engage with contemporary photography not just as an art form, but as a way of seeing and understanding the world.

Reggio Emilia, once again, becomes a city where images speak loudly, and where being twenty means something more than an age—it becomes a lens through which we reconsider identity, power, love, and future.