The seventh edition of the FOTO/INDUSTRIA Biennial in Bologna offers a unique perspective on photography through its exploration of contemporary themes. This year's photographic journey centers on the theme of 'HOME,' featuring ten exhibitions spread across seven locations in Bologna's historic center, plus an eleventh exhibition by Jeff Wall titled 'Living, Working, Surviving' at MAST. The event, organized by the MAST Foundation, presents over 500 works that offer fresh insights into processes, gestures, and relationships that make up our daily lives. Admission to all exhibitions is free.
The concept of home serves as a lens for interpreting the relationship between photography, industry, work, and technology. As visitors move from one exhibition to another in the heart of Bologna, they are invited to observe and mentally 'inhabit' both the spaces created by the photographic projects and the exhibition venues themselves. Like optical illusions, these home-themed images are housed in equally intriguing exhibition spaces that are themselves historic homes.
According to artistic director Francesco Zanot, 'The house is a physical structure whose construction represents a major industrial challenge in itself, but it is also a symbol of belonging, protection, and identity. It is a space of memory and transformation, whose evolution stems from the conditions, needs, habits, and desires of those who live there. It is an object that evolves with technological progress, both inside and outside, becoming more energy-efficient, safer, and better equipped with assistance and automation systems, but it is also a true cultural artifact. Exploring the concept of home offers new perspectives and tools for understanding its complexity and contemporary dimension.'
At the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, Ursula Schulz-Dornburg presents 'Some Homes,' featuring six series created between the 1960s and early 2000s in the Netherlands, Georgia, Russia, Turkey, Iraq, and Indonesia. These works explore the notion of home as a mirror of material culture, documenting dwellings built from natural materials destined to disappear within a few years, as well as installations designed to last centuries. Schulz-Dornburg combines documentary style with conceptual influences and social concerns.
Matei Bejenaru presents 'Prut' at Palazzo Bentivoglio, an ongoing project initiated in 2011 that focuses on villages along the banks of the Prut River. Since Romania's accession to the European Union in 2007, this river has formed a natural border of the new political Europe. These images connect us to a rural world both rooted in the past and exposed to contemporary transformations.
At Sottospazio – Palazzo Bentivoglio Lab, the collective Forensic Architecture from the UK presents 'Looking for Palestine,' where the concept of home is central to the project. The collective uses documentaries, maps, archival photographs, virtual models, and infographics to reconstruct the destruction of Palestinian villages since 1948, investigating armed conflicts and environmental destruction through the lens of architecture.
Alejandro Cartagena's 'A Small Guide to Homeownership' is presented at Palazzo Vizzani. The result of thirteen years of research, this work explores the suburbanization phenomenon that has radically transformed the Mexican city of Monterrey over the past two decades. Organized like a real estate guide, his images deconstruct the myth of property ownership as a guarantee of security, showing a fragmented landscape of distant, isolated suburbs where urban growth is guided more by profit than collective interest.
At the Fondazione Collegio Venturoli, a cultural space founded in 1826 according to the wishes of Bolognese architect Angelo Venturoli, three exhibitions explore the concept of dwelling as collective, emotional, or conceptual construction. In 'My Dreamhouse is not a House,' Julia Gaisbacher presents a photographic project devoted to the Gerlitzgründe complex in Graz. Designed in the 1970s by architect Eilfried Huth, this complex was one of Austria's first experiments in participatory social housing, where space and social model were co-created with residents.
Vuyo Mabheka, with 'The Series Popihuise,' transforms childhood memories into a symbolic scenario. As the title suggests, it refers to a popular game in South African townships called 'popihuis,' which is a low-cost version of the dollhouse. In this game, children recreate domestic spaces with makeshift materials, bringing alternative microcosms to life. Meanwhile, Mikael Olsson explores two houses by architect and designer Bruno Mathsson in 'Södrakull Frösakull,' revealing their modernist rationalism as well as their fragility in the face of time, their dialogue with the landscape, and the almost living quality of their spaces. Olsson moves away from conventional architectural photography based on neutral representation in favor of transforming his subjects into enigmatic and unsettling presences.
At MAMbo – Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, 'Quarta casa' is the first retrospective devoted to Moira Ricci, bringing together works spanning about twenty years. The exhibition highlights the coherence of her research through the recurring theme of home, showing how it is also a place where identities, genealogies, and family memories intertwine. Her pioneering work on domestic archives illuminates the relationship between photography and collective memory.
In the 'Microcosmo Sinigo' exhibition at Fondazione Del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna, Sisto Sisti documents the Montecatini chemical plant and the workers' housing estate of Sinigo in Merano, built in the 1920s. Sisti was a self-taught photographer and worker of Emilian origin who emigrated there. Between 1935 and 1950, he documented the work and daily life of families on site. The exhibition presents private moments and views of the village, conceived as a kind of collective dwelling: a microcosm with common spaces, shared gardens, bars, and other facilities. The exhibited images were selected from more than thirteen thousand photographs preserved in the Photo Library of the Provincial Archive of Bolzano.
Finally, at Spazio Carbonesi, Kelly O'Brien explores domestic work by interweaving her own family's stories with questions of class, gender, and profession. She advocates for the visibility of working women and their struggles. 'No Rest for the Wicked' celebrates the home while revealing the invisible work that underlies it.
One of the distinctive features of the Biennial is the inscription of photographic projects in an urban context. The 2025 edition takes place at a time when the very notion of work is being redefined, particularly due to automation, artificial intelligence, and sustainability. The eleven exhibitions of FOTO/INDUSTRIA aim to illustrate these changes, which obviously encompass the concepts of home and dwelling. The house thus becomes a complex critical tool for interpreting history, politics, economics, memory, and heritage. The FOTO/INDUSTRIA 2025 VII Biennial of Photography on Industry and Work runs from November 7 to December 14, 2025, in Bologna, Italy.
