premio luigi ghirri 2026
GFI | Premio Luigi Ghirri (Young Italian Photography | Luigi Ghirri Award) is a free-of-charge call for artists under the age of 35, promoting the discovery and showcase of emerging photography talents in Italy. An international commission selects the works that, receiving a financial reward, are produced and shown in a collective exhibition in the European Photography program in Reggio Emilia.
Artists are invited to submit a project fitting the main theme and including a series of images with a description and a setup proposal. The selection jury reserves its right to prefer recent or unpublished projects.
- THE THEME: “VOICES”
"In her book When I Sing, Mountains Dance, Catalan writer Irene Solà tells the story of a small village in the Pyrenean mountains through a collective narrative that intertwines human and non-human voices: clouds, deer, a dog, mushrooms, as well as people who passed away, ghosts, spirits, and the mountain itself. Through constant shifts in perspective, Solà introduces us into a universe populated by invisible beings, leading us to the acknowledgment of loss and grief, and the perception of other ways of existing.
Since its origins, the photographic medium has been dealing with the invisible, capturing its traces through lights, marks, and presences that are not perceivable by the naked eye. Similarly to Solà's writing, Photography also intertwines the visible and the invisible, what emerges and what disappears, and often invites us to conceive other ways of existing. It is no coincidence that, in the eyes of its early witnesses, photography long seemed magical, in its ability to evoke images and to present what is not there.
Nowadays, we live submerged in a constant flow of images and information, and we might think that photography and its technological developments cover and reveal the entire spectrum of reality. Yet, a large part of our world remains voiceless and invisible: people, other living and non-living beings, those who came before us and those who will come in the future. Let us ask ourselves: are there images that are able to evoke such missing voices?"