2013 Discovery of the year

Carlotta Cardana

Carlotta Cardana (Verbania, 1981) is an Italian portrait photographer based in London.

After obtaining degrees in History and Theory of the Fine Arts and Theatre and Performing Arts at the University of Turin, Cardana worked for a few years in the nouveau cirque industry before completing a photography diploma at the Italian Institute of Photography in Milan.

In 2008 she traveled to Argentina to develop two personal projects exploring the effects of the 2001 crisis in that country. The first one focused on workers in occupied factories, while the second followed a family of garbage scavengers.

In 2009 she moved to Mexico City where she worked as a freelancer for a number of leading magazines and delved into the moving image, first as a camera assistant in TV advertisements and later moving on to co-direct music videos. After two years in Mexico, she moved back to Europe and travelled around the European Union to explore how a generation of Italians, compelled to move out of their country in search for better chances, dealt with the crisis and negotiated their national identity in other EU states.

Her latest personal project, a series of portraits of couples in the British Mod scene, has received international appraisal. The series has been published on the Guardian Weekend magazine, Italian Rolling Stone, D Repubblica and Blink magazine. The photographs have been exhibited at Photofusion in London and are currently part of the Royal Photographic Society International Print exhibition. She was also one of the winners of the 2013 Lens Culture Award and was featured in their issue on new and emerging talents.

She is currently a Documentary Photography MA student at the University of South Wales (Newport) and works as a freelancer.

– view gallery –